BETRAYED
by Robin Redbird
Summary: A member of Team Gibbs is blackmailed into working on a assignment that he didn't want no part of. Betrayed, in a sense,by his own agency.
1. Chapter 1

YES. I AM STARTING ANOTHER STORY WITHOUT HAVING FINISHED MY OTHERS'.

THIS STORY IS LIKE MY OTHER 2: TEAM AS FAMILY. PAPAGIBBS. IT WILL GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER.

I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO SAY: I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN THE MILITARY AND I HAVE NEVER BEEN A COP. THE THINGS I CAN'T FIND IN MY RESEARCH, I MAKE UP.

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!

_**-NCIS-**_

Tobias Fornell had not made a smashing success of very many areas of his life. He had been a disappointment as a son. He had been a disappointment as a brother. He had been a disappointment as a friend. He had been a disappointment as a husband. And he was trying very hard not to become a disappointment as a father. But he was a very good cop. His director had told him once that he was the best agent he had ever seen. Tobias was like a dog with a bone. Once he got his teeth into something he would never let it go. He could put the pieces of the puzzle together easier, faster, and more accurately then almost any other agent. Yes, Tobias was a good cop, a good agent. He worked harder, longer and more efficiently then any other agent. He kept his mouth shut, followed orders and didn't question his superiors. Which is how he found himself standing in Bethesda Naval Hospital, in the middle of a weekday night, his once pristine white dress shirt and gray suit pants soaked with someone else's blood, watching as that person, one Timothy McGee, was rolled down the sterile, stark white hallway, surrounded by blue scrubbed medical personnel, who were trying to save his life.

Tobias ran a hand through his receding gray hair and turned in frustration to the waiting room the nurse had pointed him to. He just couldn't understand how things had gone so _**wrong.**_ It should have been so simple, so _**easy.**_ Get in, get the information from the computer, get out. No one should have been hurt, especially not someone who had no business being there in the first place. Someone who had to be blackmailed to be there.

Tobias bypassed the hard plastic chairs and started to angrily pace back and forth. Blackmailing McGee in working with them on this assignment had left a bad taste not only in his mouth, but in Sacks and Courtney's mouths, also. It was the only order that he had ever seriously considered disobeying. Now he wished he had. The only reason he probably hadn't was that he didn't think even with the threat, McGee would work with them. Tobias could still remember the look on McGee's face that day in the Director's office when the offer had been passed along. McGee hadn't wanted to do it. He didn't even have to say a word everyone could see it on his face. Before the kid could even open his mouth, the threat had been issued.

_**'NCIS doesn't need a computer geek that can't follow orders.'**_

McGee had taken it to mean, as Tobias had, that if he didn't do this then his position at NCIS would be forfeit. Tobias had never really spent anytime with McGee, not like he had DiNozzo and the rest of Gibbs team. He had believed that McGee would just go to Gibbs, even though he had been warned not too. Tobias had really been expecting to deal with Gibbs. McGee hadn't trusted Tobias and his team and after the part that they had played in securing his cooperation, he hadn't really expected him to. But what Tobias had failed to understand was, the kid didn't trust Gibbs, either. Didn't trust Gibbs to have his back or to keep his position safe on his team. What Tobias hadn't realized was that McGee saw himself as most people who didn't know McGee saw him—as just a computer geek, as having no value to NCIS then what he could do with computers. Tobias could still hear the kid's voice like it was yesterday. _**'Sure I'm smart, but there are a lot of smart people at NCIS. Any one of them could do what I do. I'm not Tony or Ziva. I'm replaceable.' **_Tobias hadn't known what to say to that so he had said nothing. Now he wished he had. Told the kid he was wrong or something. Encouraged him to go to Gibbs, maybe. Or maybe he should have gone to his friend himself. If he had, then this might not have happened.

Tobias suddenly wanted to punch someone, and not the man that had shot McGee, necessarily. He wanted to hit the person that had caused this kid—the most loyal, trustworthy, and kind, not to mention _**good, **_agent he had ever had the pleasure to work with—to feel so bad about himself that he thought of himself as expendable. He wanted to do some real damage to the person who made McGee think he had to go it alone. But most of all Tobias wanted to just _**strangle**_ Gibbs for making the kid think he wasn't _**important**_ enough to fight for!

_**-NCIS-**_

When the phone rings in the middle of the night, it's rarely a good thing. When it's a friend and he has never called you in the early morning in all the years you've known him about anything good, you know it's going to be bad. When he only says two words, you know just how bad it's going to get.

"_Gibbs!" _Special Agent Jethro Gibbs barked into his phone as he sat up, pushing his sheet and comforter aside.

"_Bethesda E.R." _The terse voice of Tobias Fornell said before hanging up.

Gibbs didn't bother to change out of the black sweats and gray t-shirt he had worn to bed, opting instead to slip his feet into a pair of scuffed sneakers, grabbing a hooded sweat shirt off the hook by his front door and scooping up his wallet, keys, and badge after getting his weapon out of it's lock box. He was in his charger and heading to the hospital less then five minutes after the phone call, a churning in his gut telling him that if it was as bad as Tobias seemed to think it was, there wasn't a second to waste.

_**-NCIS-**_

Tobias clicked his phone shut and returned it to it's case on his belt, wondering if that had been the best thing to do, but not seeing any thing else he could do.

"Are you sure calling Gibbs was the wisest course of action?" A deep voice echoed his thoughts from behind him.

Tobias swung around angrily, to come into contact with the dark chocolate skinned face and dark fathomless eyes of his agent.

"A federal officer has been shot, and may be dying, Agent Sacks." He bit out, knowing it wasn't right to take his anger out on the younger man, but needing the outlet for his anger, none the less. "He is not a FBI agent, so I can't call our director to have everyone notified that needs to be notified. I don't have the number for the Director of NCIS, so who do you suggest I call?" He voice had rose as he talked and he practically shouted the last of his sentence.

Ron Sacks wasn't offended in anyway. He knew his boss was worried and needed a target to unleash his fury at the injustice of this whole thing. Hell, he liked the kid, too. "You calling in his family, Tobias?" Ron asked quietly. "Is it that bad?" He hadn't thought it was that bad. It hadn't looked that bad.

Tobias gestured to his blood stained shirt and pants. "It certainly isn't good!" He yelled.

Ron grimaced. The kid _**had**_ lost a lot of blood and Tobias wasn't one to panic unnecessarily. Tobias was one of the calmest, most level headed people Ron knew. If Tobias was worried then there was something to be worried about. Ron felt his own concern increase.

Fornell glared at his man for a few seconds more before he sighed tiredly and ran his hands wearily down his face. "I'm sorry, Ron."

"It's okay, Tobias. I like the kid, too." Sacks said, repeating his thought from a moment ago.

Tobias nodded, walked to the nearest chair and slumped in it. "Where's Courtney?"

Ron shrugged. "You know how she is." He said, sitting down beside his boss. Courtney, now, _**was**_ one to think the worst."I figured you wouldn't be able to stand her nervous energy and sent her to get coffee. It's better if she has something to do."

Tobias nodded. While they had gotten off to a rocky start, things had changed and he had come to think of Courtney in the same vein as he did Ron. Like his own did not mean that she couldn't drive him up the wall sometimes. It was okay when she had work to do, something to focus on, but when she had time on her hands... He shook his head fondly. "Are you sure that having Courtney get coffee was a good idea?" He asked with a ghost of a smile.

Ron barked out a laugh. "Maybe not." Courtney on caffeine... Ron shook his head. Not a good thing. _**'She'll be bouncing off the walls.'**_

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each staring at the beige wall in front of them.

"This my fault, Ron." Tobias said finally when the silence became to much for him. "I caused this. If that kid dies, it's on my head."

Ron shook his head. "Tobias—"

"It was my idea to bring him in." Tobias interrupted. "Did you know that? That kid is the best I've ever seen. A good field agent. A good computer specialist. A good guy. I was looking forward to working with him, of course that was before I realized exactly _**how**_ he was going to come about working with us." Tobias shook his head."If I had known, I would have kept my mouth shut, even if it meant that these guys got away."

"You don't mean that, Tobias." Ron said, becoming a little worried about what it would do to his boss if McGee didn't survive this.

Tobias kept talking as if Ron hadn't said anything. "He deserved better than to be betrayed like he was!" He jumped up and started to pace.

"That's not your fault, Tobias. Tim has worked with NCIS for over eight years and he's been on Gibbs team for over seven of those years. If his job isn't secure now, it never will be."

Tobias stopped his frantic pacing and slumped back into the chair he just vacated. "It's still my fault."

Ron let the matter drop. He knew that there would be no convincing his boss otherwise and to be truthful he honestly didn't know what else to say. He just begin to pray harder that McGee would be okay. He shuddered to think what Tobias would do if he wasn't.

_**-NCIS-**_

Tobias looked up when Gibbs came storming into the waiting room a short ten minutes later. He didn't even want to think about how many traffic laws had to have been broken for him to have gotten there in that short amount of time.

Gibbs took in the blood on his friend's clothes and raised an eyebrow in concern.

"It's not mine, Jethro." Tobias said, reading Gibbs' mind.

Gibbs nodded, relieved. "What's going on,Tobias?" He barked out. "Why am I here?"

Tobias just stared at him. While he wasn't at a loss for words, he was at a loss of the right ones to convey what needed to be said. "There was a shooting tonight, Jethro. We were sent into an area to retrieve information that is central to a case and it was a trap. They were waiting for us and an agent was shot."

"I have yet to hear what this has to do with me, Tobias!" Gibbs exclaimed impatiently, the burning in his gut telling him that he wouldn't like where this was going.

Anger burned in Tobias brightly. He had let Ron believe that he'd called Gibbs to notify the kid's family, but that wasn't exactly true. All he had to do to notify McGee's family was search through the kid's cell phone. Hell, they were federal agents. Even without McGee's cell phone, it would have been pretty easy to get the kid's information. He had called Gibbs for help. That Sacks had believed him when he had said differently was a testament to how worried he was.

Now that Gibbs was here, Tobias was beginning to rethink his decision to involve Gibbs in this, even though McGee was his agent. With his own words, McGee had named himself replaceable. True or not, there had to be something there to make him think that way. The thought wouldn't have got into the kid's head if it hadn't been placed there by someone. And it couldn't have just been the words spoken to gain his cooperation in this assignment. The thought had to already be there for it to be able to be exploited like it was.

"Tobias!"

Tobias sighed wearily. "Jethro—"

Before he could complete his sentence, a doctor appeared in the doorway of the waiting room.

"Family of Timothy McGee!" He called, letting Gibbs know why he was there. Or at least one of the reasons why he was there.

-NCIS-

LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!


	2. Chapter 2

_**I AM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING! MY WRIST IS NOT HEALING AS THE DOCTOR SAID IT WOULD. UPDATES WILL CONTINUE TO BE SPORADIC AND CHAPTERS WILL BE SHORT LIKE THIS ONE IS. THANKS FOR ALL THE REVIEWS, ALERTS, FAVORITES AND ALL THAT!**_

_**I INTEND TO ANSWER ALL THE REVIEWS BECAUSE I TRULY APPRECIATE READERS TAKING THE TIME TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK. **_

_**THIS IS A WORK OF **_**FANFICTION****. _THIS IS MY INTERPURTATION OF AN EVENT INVOLVING NCIS CHARATERS. IT IS NOT CANON. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THAT THEN THE SOLUTION IS SIMPLE: DON'T READ IT!_**

_**DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!**_

_**-NCIS-**_

FBI Agent Courtney Krieger hurried through the hallway of Bethesda Naval Hospital, her low-heeled black shoes clicking on the hard floor, carrying a container that held three tall cups of black coffee. She was glad to finally be there, anxious to see if there were any news on her new friend, the NCIS agent that had recently joined her team.

Courtney was a woman of average height and weight, with straight long light brown hair that she wore loose, falling around her slender shoulders. She had creamy, ivory skin, a too wide mouth and a face that was redeemed from plainness by a pair of lovely dove gray eyes.

She turned the corner and entered in the waiting room where the other members of her team, Senior Agent Ron Sacks and Team leader Tobias Fornell waited.

Ron was a tall, slender man with deep, coffee colored skin and dark eyes. Tobias Fornell had dark blue eyes that stared out of a pale, lined face and receding gray hair. He was a thin man of average stature and a slim build, but he had a presence about him that made him seem so much taller and bigger then he actually was.

Ron Sacks held up a hand when she entered and she stopped, watching him where he stood, with Tobias and another man that she recognized as Tim's boss, Agent Gibbs, talking with a blue-scrubbed doctor. She watched as Ron moved away from them and came toward her. She was actually thankful that he had stopped her. Courtney could tell by Gibbs stiff posture and the angry tone to his voice as he questioned the doctor that the man was absolutely _**furious**_.

"Hey, Ron." Courtney said quietly, handing him the container that held the three coffees. "What's going on?" She asked, glancing at Tobias, Gibbs, and the doctor.

Ron sighed. "Tobias called Gibbs so he could call the kid's family in."

Courtney nodded, with one eyebrow raised. That wasn't what she had meant but it was useful information anyway, even if she was a little confused. They didn't need Gibbs to call in Tim's family. The fact that that had escaped Ron's attention was an indication of how worried he was. "Wouldn't he have called Gibbs anyway?" She asked. That was the other thing she was confused about. "To let him know how the mission went? To let him know that he could stand down?" Courtney imagined Gibbs pacing the floor, as Tobias would if it was Ron or her involved in an operation he wasn't a part of, waiting anxiously for word that his agent was okay, becoming angrier by every minute that passed with no word. Courtney looked around, suddenly noticing the lack of other people. "Wait. Where's the rest of Tim's team? They aren't here_** yet?**_" She asked in surprise.

Ron shook his head. "Courtney..." He breathed out. But before he could find the words to tell her that the other members' of Team Gibbs hadn't' been informed—and he wasn't entirely sure they would be here even if they had been told—Tobias called him over, a look of relief on his face.

Ron left and Courtney just stood there uncertainly for a few minutes before deciding to go see if Tim could have a visitor. She wouldn't feel better until she could see him for herself, even though, judging by how Tobias was acting, it looked like Tim was going to be just fine.

Courtney left the waiting room, glancing over her shoulder as she left. She was glad to get away from Gibbs. Gibbs face was so red it looked like he was going to explode! If he was anything like Tobias, and he must be—they did share an ex-wife, after all—then she didn't want to be anywhere nearby when he did.

_**-NCIS-**_

Timothy McGee groaned as he shifted slightly on the hard, uncomfortable, not to mention _**little**_ bed they had him on—if it could even be called a bed—sending a white- hot pain through his wounded shoulder. He should have known this would happen! Tim had had a bad feeling about this from the start, he hadn't trusted the FBI or their intel, but it wasn't as though he had a choice in the matter. Tim moved again, trying to find a comfortable spot, wincing when he jarred his shoulder again.

"Does it hurt bad?" A voice inquired, coming closer to the bed.

Tim opened his eyes, ready to fire back a sarcastic reply to such an inane question—he'd been shot for goodness sake!—but stopped when he saw the concern in the pretty, dove gray eyes of his FBI counterpart. He might not fully trust Tobias and Ron but he did like Courtney Krieger. He had begun to think of her as a friend or at least more than an acquaintance or co-worker. "Only when I move, Courtney." He said instead, sinking back into the bed and gritting his teeth as a spasm of pain worked its way through him.

Courtney moved closer. "Then may I make a suggestion?" She asked, stopping at the edge of Tim's bed.

"What?"

Courtney shrugged. "Don't move."

Tim barked out a laugh then winced when even that movement caused pain to vibrate through his body.

Courtney winced in sympathy. "They aren't giving you anything?" She asked, a little bit of anger entering her voice.

Tim clenched his jaw as he rode out the pain, keeping his eyes shut tight.

Courtney narrowed her eyes as she watched her friend, moving closer to the bed and gently smoothing a soft manicured hand across his forehead.

"They're giving me what they can." Tim said finally in a strained voice, leaning a little into her touch. He couldn't remember the last time someone had touched him like that. So softly. So gently. "I have trouble with a lot of medicine." He explained, sighing. "They don't want to give me something that will over tax my already weakened system." It was another thing that made him different. It was just another thing that set him apart from everyone else. Another thing that kept him from being normal.

Courtney nodded in understanding. "What does the doctor say?" She asked.

Tim opened his eyes. "Hasn't the doctor been out to talk to Tobias yet?" He asked in confusion. "He said that he was going right out."

Courtney shifted her eyes widening then dropping. "I, uh, didn't stay to hear."

Tim's eyes narrowed at the uncertainty in his friend's voice. "Why not, Courtney?"

"Gibbs was there when the doctor came out." She said, moving to perch on the end of his bed. "He wasn't...happy." Now there was an understatement if there had ever been one!

Tim groaned again. Great! This was just great! "What's _**he**_ doing here?" He exclaimed. "How did he even find out, anyway?"

Courtney jumped a little, startled at his loud voice. "Um, Tobias called him." She said, uneasy and confused at his reaction to Gibbs being there. To Courtney the question was why _**wouldn't**_ he be there, not why _**was **_ he there.

"Why would Tobias_** do**_ that?"

"He told Ron that he was calling in your family."

Tim snorted. "And Ron believed that?" He asked incredulously.

Courtney laughed. "I know, right? I mean, come on! We're federal agents!"

Tim smiled but refrained from laughing, not wanting to cause himself more pain.

Courtney's laughter stopped and an uneasy silence descended on them, each unsure of what to say or ask. "Why is Gibbs so mad?" She asked finally, breaking the silence. That had been bothering her. Not that he was angry but that there had seemed to be more anger than concern.

Courtney didn't know that Gibbs' concern manifested as anger.

Tim rolled his eyes. "Oh, I don't know, could it possibly have anything to do with being woken up at 3:00 in the morning and no one's dead or dying?"

Courtney blinked. "He wasn't waiting up?" She asked, astonished. "I mean, he knew that tonight was the night, right?" Courtney couldn't imagine the team leader being able to _**sleep**_ knowing that Tim was going on an assignment, even if it wasn't suppose to be dangerous. Maybe the man didn't do _**anxious**_ but to be so... so..._**cavalier**_ about it... Courtney shook her head.

Tim sighed. "No, Courtney, Gibbs did not know that this was the night. How would Gibbs know that tonight was the night of the assignment? He wasn't a part of it, remember?" He asked.

Courtney just stared at him. "Wait—you didn't _**tell**_ him!" She exclaimed. That certainly would make _**her**_ mad!

"Of course not!" He exclaimed. "I was ordered not to, remember?" He asked pointedly. He stared over her shoulder, in remembered shame. His humiliation hadn't been in private. There had been other people there to hear how little he was thought of by his own agency. It it embarrassed him every time he thought about it.

"Yeah, but—but he's your _**boss**_!" Courtney sputtered.

"I was ordered not to." Tim repeated stubbornly.

Courtney just stared at her friend. She couldn't believe it! If Gibbs didn't know, did that mean that the rest of Tim's team didn't? Why? Courtney shook her head again. She couldn't imagine not telling her team something as important as this, especially when Tim didn't entirely trust them. So why didn't Tim tell his friends and team mates?

_**-NCIS-**_


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER_**: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!**_

_**-NCIS-**_

Tim watched Courtney fidget for a long while. He could tell that she wanted to question him some more but he knew she wouldn't. Courtney wasn't a woman who pried her way into her friends private lives. She was the type that figured if you didn't tell her something then it was none of her business. She was a refreshing change from Tony, who took it as an insult when someone refused to tell him every detail of their lives. "Alright,Courtney." He said finally. "What is it?"

Courtney bit her lip and looked at her friend from hooded eyes. "You _**really**_ didn't tell Gibbs?" She asked hesitantly. "I mean, I know that you were ordered not too, but I never thought you wouldn't." Courtney shrugged from where she sat perched on the end of Tim's bed. "The first thing that I would have done, the _**very**_ first thing, was talk to Tobias."

Tim settled deeper in the hospital bed and bit his tongue to keep from snapping at her. He knew that Courtney hadn't meant to hurt him. He knew that she would never intentionally hurt anyone. And it wasn't her fault that Tim didn't have the kind of relationship with Gibbs that she had with Tobias.

"What—what do you think that Gibbs is going to say?" She asked tentatively when Tim remained silent, starting to pick at Tim's hospital blanket.

Tim groaned, covering his eyes with the arm of his uninjured side. He gritted his teeth at the agony caused by that movement. "I don't know but I expect that I'll find out any minute." Gibbs would be _**very**_ vocal about his displeasure at being left out of the loop. _**Very**_ vocal.

Courtney nodded, grimacing, a contemplative look on her face.

Tim removed his arm and saw the look. "What is it?" He asked her on a sigh. He had a feeling what it was and wished that she would just let it go.

Courtney shrugged again. "I guess I just don't understand, Tim." She said, biting her lip.

Tim raised his leaf-green eyes to the ceiling. "Why I didn't go to Gibbs as soon as I was given this assignment?"

"Well, yeah."

Tim stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, wondering how to answer her. "Gibbs team," he started at last, "it's not like your team. We're really not that close." Tim looked at her. "At least not with me." He amended when he saw the expression on her face. "Tony and Gibbs, well they were a team a long time before they ever met me. And Ziva—Ziva brings a entirely different set of skills to the team. I'm just the computer tech. They could get along without me just fine. Tony, Gibbs and Kate has already proved that." Tim had told Courtney about Kate on a long night when they had supposed to have been studying the computer layout that Tim was being sent in to get the information from. "I'm not one of them. I don't fit. They don't _**need**_ me." He empathized.

Courtney stiffened as she remembered the day this had all started.

_**'You need them a lot more then they need you, Agent McGee. You'd do best to remember that.'**_

The tone had been vicious and cruel. Courtney had seen the way the words had chipped away at what little self-confidence Tim had, making him doubt himself. Courtney forced herself to relax. "I'm—I'm sure that's not true true, Tim." She said quietly, laying a hand on his blanket covered leg. He just looked at her sadly and she could tell that he didn't believe her.

"I couldn't take the chance that it was true." He said after a minute. "I have no doubt that I could have gone to Gibbs and he would have helped me the best he could. But it could have gone either way, you know? If it had came down to it, with Gibbs help, I might not have lost my job, but I could have lost my position on the MCRT. I couldn't take the chance that Gibbs would decide that I wasn't worth the trouble this time." Tim thought about the other times Gibbs had to step in for him—with Benedict, with his sister, when Vance had split them up. "I couldn't take the chance that this would be the straw that broke the camel's back."

"You were afraid he would just let you go." Courtney said sagely.

Tim blew out a breath. "Yeah."

"Then why don't you just let him?" Courtney questioned, gray eyes meeting brilliant green ones. "Why don't you find somewhere that you do fit? Somewhere you are needed?"

Tim avoided her eyes. "I am well aware of how pathetic this sounds, but NCIS is the closest thing to a home I've ever had, and my team is the closest thing to—to friends I have." He couldn't call them family, although he would have liked to. They weren't close enough for that. They weren't even really friends. It wasn't their fault. It was his. He just wasn't able to get close to people. He had never been able to. There was just something wrong with him and he honestly didn't know what. Tony, Ziva, hell, even _**Gibbs**_ had friends. _**Real**_ friends. They had no trouble getting close to people, forming relationships. "I've never been able to connect with people. I've always been too..." He trailed off.

He didn't need to finish. Courtney already knew what he was going to say. Too much. Too smart. Too young. Too different. Just altogether too much. Courtney understood what it was to be too much. She had drifted on alone, until she had been assigned to Tobias' team. It hadn't started out great, but it was good now. She finally understood what it was like to belong. She wished that she could give that feeling to her friend. "I'm sorry, Tim."

Tim shook his head. "It's not your fault that I'm pathetic."

She started to tell him that he wasn't pathetic and that wasn't what she had been talking about anyway, but the look on his face told her he knew that already. "You know, if—if you wanted, I'm sure that Tobias would—" she swallowed hard, suddenly uncomfortable. "would make a place for you." She forced out. "I know that you don't completely trust Tobias and considering t the way this got started, you have a right to your feelings. But you have to know that Tobias didn't want things to play out the way they have." She stopped. "It wouldn't take much to fit with us, Tim." Courtney faltered for a minute. "I mean, I already think of you as a friend and we already know we work well together. Tobias thinks very highly of you and Ron likes you, too." She finished. She wanted to say a lot more, but she didn't know how to express what she wanted to say. She wasn't very good at words, not when they had to do with actual emotion and not tech speak. She swallowed hard again. " I could talk to Tobias if you wanted." She said, dropping her eyes to where her hand rested on his knee. "See if he thought it was even possible if you could transfer to our team."

The curtain to Tim's cubicle was jerked back violently, startling them both.

"I can already answer that!" The loud, angry voice of Jethro Gibbs said. "It's not possible!"

_**-NCIS-**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**YES. I KNOW. I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN A WHILE. IT HAS BEEN A FEW HARD WEEKS FOR ME. I HAD A PROCEDURE DONE ON MY WRIST(I STILL DON'T HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT. SOME BIG LONG NAME THAT I CAN'T EVEN PRONOUNCE.) IT WAS NOT EASY GOING, LET ME TELL ALL OF YOU. THEN LAST WEEK, I DEVELOPED AN INFECTION THAT HIT ME HARD. I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS EVEN IN THIS WORLD FOR A FEW DAYS. I'M BEING SERIOUS. I STARTED NOT FEELING WELL LAST SATURDAY, THE NEXT THING I KNOW I'M WAKING UP AND IT'S THANKSGIVING DAY! I'M WRITING THIS NOTE FROM MY HOSPITAL ROOM! THIS CHAPTER WAS ALMOST FINISHED SO I DECIDED TO KEEP IT WHERE IT WAS AND POST SINCE IT HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE I'VE UPDATED ANY OF MY STORIES. I SHOULD HAVE UPDATES TO THE REST BY SATURDAY, SUNDAY AT THE LATEST. MY BROTHER(HE'S A GEM!) IS GOING TO TYPE THEM UP FOR ME.(I WRITE ON PAPER BECAUSE SOMETIMES IT DOESN'T GO THE WAY I WANT AND I LIKE TO GET IT JUST RIGHT BEFORE TRYING TO TYPE) I AM QUITE SURPRISED THAT HE WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT FOR ME. MY BROTHER IS A COACH, SO HE SPENDS MOST OF HIS TIME IN THE GYM OR FIELD AND HAS LITTLE USE FOR COMPUTERS AND SUCH. BUT MY MOTHER SAID I SCARED HIM AND I GEUSS I MUST HAVE BECAUSE HE'S NEVER DONE ANYTHING LIKE THIS FOR ME BEFORE. (IT'S NOT THE SAME AS TAKING CARE OF MY CAR OR FIXING THE LEAK UNDER THE SINK) SORRY SO LONG!**_

_**DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!**_

_**-NCIS-**_

Jethro Gibbs couldn't remember ever being this angry before. When he had heard that doctor call out his youngest agents name, a fear like he had never known had filled him as his heart dropped to his stomach. When he heard the doctor say that Tim was going to be fine, just had to stay for a couple of days for a blood transfusion and to be watched to make sure that his wound didn't open back up and start bleeding again, the fear had quickly turned to anger. That anger had turned to red-hot fury when Tobias had explained just _**how**_ McGee had come to be in a hospital with a gunshot wound and just _**why**_ Gibbs hadn't been informed. His anger had cooled a little until he'd heard that—that _**FBI person **_try and steal Tim away from _**his**_ team. "Is that what you want, McGee?" Gibbs almost yelled, his voice tight with his fury. "You want to transfer to the FBI?

Tim blinked at his angry boss, confused. He wasn't exactly sure how this topic of conversation had started. Of everything he thought Gibbs would be angry about or want to know, Tim hadn't thought that this would even be a blimp on his radar. "No, Boss." He said meekly.

Some of Gibbs anger had left him with McGee's answer until he saw Courtney's hand resting on McGee's knee. Ice blue eyes narrowed and he stared pointedly at her pale hand with the clean but unpolished nails until she drew it back uneasily and awkwardly vacated her perch on Tim's bed so that Gibbs could take her place.

Tobias watched in amusement. He would have laughed but knew it would have been inappropriate.

Ron let himself crack a smile as Courtney edged her way to stand beside him. He didn't blame her for her uneasiness. If looks could kill, she would have expired on the spot from the glare Gibbs leveled her way.

Gibbs started to sit on Tim's ER stretcher but he stiffened and turned his glare on Tobias. "I want to talk to my agent. _**ALONE.**_" He hissed through gritted teeth. "_**LEAVE!**_."

Tobias didn't take it as an insult, just turned around and left without another word, thankful that Tim was going to be fine, Ron following behind him.

Courtney braved Gibbs' anger to take a step closer to Tim. "I'll be back in a little bit, okay, Tim?" She said hesitantly.

Tim nodded at her, his focus on his boss.

Courtney quietly left the cubicle, hurrying to tell her own boss that she was going to stay, if it was alright. She knew that Tobias and Ron had to go into the office to give their report but since she had not been in the building with them Courtney hoped she would be able to stay. She didn't like the idea of her friend being here, alone and in pain. She assumed that Tim would be admitted and she didn't think that Gibbs would stick around after letting loose his anger on Tim. She just couldn't picture him as the nursemaid type.

_**-NCIS-**_

Tim met his boss' glare, trying not to flinch.

"What the hell is going ho here, McGee?" Gibbs all but yelled. "What in the world did you think you were doing?"

"Following orders." Tim answered warily.

Gibbs leaned over until they were almost nose to nose. "Not _**my**_ orders!" He gritted out angrily.

Tim flinched back into his bed automatically, then hissed in pain, his shoulder throbbing. He so did not need this right now! He was _**shot**_. He didn't even get the information that he had been sent after. Tim had no idea what was going happen with his failure to complete his assignment. He didn't need _**Gibbs**_ on top of that! "I don't need this right now, Gibbs!" Tim shouted angrily, pushing himself up closer to Gibbs. "I just spent a month preparing for a assignment that blew up in my face! I not only didn't get the information I was sent after but somehow I managed to get myself shot, too. I let everyone down! I'm not sure what's going to happen but I can tell you that it's not going to be anything good! NCIS—" He stopped, mashing his lips together. "NCIS doesn't need a field agent who can't complete an assignment as simple as this was supposed to be." He finished in a quieter voice, settling wearily against his pillows.

Gibbs, who had stood up when Tim had started shouting, studied his agent, some of his anger leaving him. He knew he should say something to McGee, but he wasn't sure what. He couldn't give encouragement because that wasn't his way. Head slaps and harsh words were more his style, but by the look on Tim's face, that wouldn't go so well now. He needed to know what was going on! Tobias had only given him the vaguest of explanations. How was he suppose to help when he didn't know what was happening? Anger at being kept in the dark consumed him again but before he could let it loose, he was interrupted.

"I shouldn't have to remind you that Tim is in a hospital recovering from a gunshot wound!" Courtney said angrily from behind him. Normally she wouldn't dare to speak in such a tone to the Team Leader, but worry for her friend had caused her tongue to loosen.

Gibbs spun around, glad to have a target for his anger. "He wouldn't be if he'd come to me!" He barked at the woman.

Courtney placed her hands on her black covered hips. "He couldn't come to you!" She barked right back. "He—"

"Courtney!" Tim cut in.

Courtney's eyes cut to Tim and a look that Gibbs couldn't identify and didn't like passed between them. It was the same kind of look that had passed between Tobias and Sacks out in the waiting room when Tobias had been trying to explain to him how this had come about. A look that said they knew more his his agent then he did. Before Gibbs could try to get to the truth, the doctor came back in and he did not look happy.

"My patient needs rest, not the two of you fighting over him!" He said in a quiet but angry tone. "If the two of you can not control yourselves, federal agents of not, you'll have to leave!"

Gibbs pursed his lips together grimly and glared at the doctor before turning his icy blue gaze to Courtney, but refrained from saying anything.

Courtney forced a calmness she didn't feel and walked to Tim's bedside. "How long will he have to stay, Doctor?" She asked, having not gotten that information from Tobias.

The doctor, who had gave his own glare, turned his attention to Courtney. "For a few days." He said to her back.

She turned to face him. "Why so long if it's just a through and through?" She asked, concerned. "I thought it didn't hit anything vital?"

The doctor looked at Tim, a questioning look on his face. "No, the bullet didn't his any vital organs." The doctor said when Tim nodded. "But it did graze an artery and that caused him to lose a lot of blood." Courtney was not the only one to interrupt the look on the doctor's face or to hear what wasn't being said. _**'Almost too much.'**_ Tobias had been right to worry.

"Agent McGee could go home tomorrow but as he has informed me that he has no one that could stay with him," the doctor continued. "and I would rather he not be alone, then he's going to be our guest for the next few days."

Courtney turned to Tim. "You don't have to stay here if you don't want to, Tim." She said without thinking about it. "You can stay with me."

Tim started to protest but Courtney stopped him. " Tobias won't mind me taking a few days off and it's not like you don't practically live there already." After the first few times that Tim had drug himself home in the early hours of the day from her place, where they had been preparing for this assignment, Courtney had convinced Tim that it made more sense for him to stay in her spare room, then it did for him to drive all the way to his apartment. They got more work done, he got more rest and Jethro had her garden to stay in. "Besides, I doubt if you will be in any condition to walk Jethro and since he's already there in the garden..." She trailed off when she noticed that Tim wasn't paying any attention to her. He followed his green gaze to Gibbs and almost shuddered at the look of absolute fury on the older man's face.

"**ABSOLUTELY NOT!" **He roared, clenching his fists tightly.


	5. Chapter 5

_**DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!**_

When Tony had gotten the call from Gibbs telling him to come to the hospital, he hadn't known what to expect, but he was sure, even in his wildest dreams—and Tony DiNozzo had some wild dreams—that he hadn't expected to find his boss and the FBI fighting over his Probie. And judging by the expression on his female partner's face, it was the last thing that Ziva expected, too.

"McGee is an NCIS agent!" Gibbs exclaimed angrily, facing off with Courtney.

"Who was hurt on special assignment with the FBI!" Courtney exclaimed just as angrily, not showing any signs of backing down.

"An assignment that I knew nothing about!"

"This assignment had nothing to do with you!"

"It had everything to do with me! I'm his boss!"

"Not his only one!" Courtney clamped her hands over her mouth as soon as the words left her, horrified at the thought that she had almost betrayed her friend.

"Courtney!" Tim almost yelled from his stretcher.

Gibbs turned cold, calculating eyes to his agent. "What are you keeping from me?" He hissed through clenched teeth.

"Enough!" The doctor that Tony hadn't noticed until that moment roared before Tim could answer. "I've already told you two once, I won't tell you again!He needs rest!" He glared at Gibbs then at Courtney. "Got it!"

They both nodded with mutinous expressions on their faces.

The doctor rolled his eyes and turned to leave. "Oh, and Agent McGee?" The doctor said over his shoulder. "If I were you, I wouldn't go home with either one of them." He advised. "I'd ban them from my room and stay as long as my doctor would keep me!" The doctor cast another glare at Gibbs and Courtney before stalking out of Tim's cubicle, muttering to himself down the hall.

Tony couldn't help it. He let out a snort and then a snicker escaped.

Ziva wasn't any better. A laugh left her before she could stop herself. She covered it with a cough when Gibbs turned his icy blue gaze on her and Tony.

Courtney eyed the two new guests warily. If they thought that they were going to railroad her friend just because they out numbered her, they had another thing coming. "What are you two doing here!" She turned accusing eyes to Gibbs. "You called them here didn't you?"

Gibbs just glared at her. He wouldn't answer such a stupid question.

"Courtney!" Tim hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose in a long suffering manner. "_**Please**_!"

Courtney clamped her lips together but continued to glare at the other three members of Team Gibbs.

A middle-aged nurse with graying blond hair and hazel eyes came in then and Tim didn't know what made him happier—that she held a syringe in her lightly tanned hand that may have been the higher dose pain medicine the doctor had promised if he did good on what they had already given him or that she had interrupted a tense and almost volatile situation.

"There aren't supposed to be more then two visitors at a time." She gently admonished as she made her way to where Tim laid. "I'm going to have to ask two of you to leave."

"I'm his boss." Gibbs snapped out. "Agents DiNozzo and David. They are here on protection detail." He added, jerking his head in Tony and Ziva's direction. "We're not here to visit him."

Courtney saw Tim flinch at the callously spoken words out of the corner of her eye and moved closer to him, laying a soft, pale hand on his shoulder. "I'm the only visitor here, I guess." The reprimand was clear in her voice and Gibbs wasn't the only one who winced at the challenge in her words.

Tim raised his hand on his good side to cover Courtney's, grateful for the contact not only because she was showing her support but because he was starved for contact and Courtney had touched him more in one night then anyone else had in a long time. Gentle contact. Tim didn't count head slaps, even though Tony was convinced they were a sign of affectation.

The nurse smiled gently at her patient. "It's good to have someone special with you when you're hurt." She said with a twinkle in her eyes. "There's just something about having that certain person with you that makes you feel better." Tim knew immediately that she had drawn a wrong conclusion but he was too exhausted and in to much pain to explain and it seemed that Courtney hadn't caught on yet.

Unfortunately, Gibbs had caught the implication and he was glaring anew at Courtney, seeing the way she kept touching his agent, her insistence on McGee staying with her and the fact that he apparently had already spent some time at her house, evidenced by the fact that McGee's dog was already there, in a new light.

"Now then," The nurse said, opening a alcohol pad and cleaning Tim's I.V. "this is a higher dose pain medicine then the one that you were given before." She said, inserting the syringe into his I.V. and pushing the plunger. "The same instructions go as before. With your history, Agent McGee, we can't take any chances." She patted Tim's hand kindly. "This should help you rest comfortably." She said with a smile. "But if you have any of the symptoms that you were warned about, let someone know immediately."

Tim's eyes were already closed and he was starting to relax into the bed, the pain that had racked his body easing.

Courtney looked at the nurse, concerned. "Should it be working this fast?" She questioned.

The nurse looked at Tim, a bit alarmed. "Oh, dear. I have never actually seen it work this fast." She stepped closer to Tim to examine him, followed closely by Gibbs, Tony and Ziva. The nurse looked over Tim. "He must be especially susceptible to this medicine." She said, looking up. She started when she found herself surrounded. "Uh..." She trailed of uncertainly.

"Perhaps you should tell me about these side affects." Courtney said.

"Of course." The nurse started to list everything Courtney should watch for.

Gibbs wanted to stay and listen but he had instructions to give and a shooter to find so he couldn't afford to stand around even though he was concerned about his agent. He motioned for Tony and Ziva to follow him and walked out into the hall.

_**~NCIS~**_

At the hoover building, two agents looked up at the same time, both having come to the same disturbing realization and they started looking at their special assignment at a new angle, both wondering the same thing—what had a computer specialist from a lesser known agency done to make someone set him up to be killed like this?

_**~NCIS~**_

_**ON A DIRT ROAD OUTSIDE THE CITY...**_

"How did you mess this up?" A tall, well-dressed man with graying light brown hair gritted out angrily through clenched teeth. "It was the _**perfect**_ set up! It fell into place like it was meant to be! No one had _any_ clue!" The man through his hands up into the air. "None! A forensic computer specialist was needed! Fornell fell right into this! He suggested McGee, as I suspected he would, making him culpable, and Director Vance manipulated McGee into it, just like he was told to." The man started to pace back and forth in front of two dark colored sedans. "It was so simple. All planned out. McGee was to die in an operation gone bad. The information he knows would die with him and the most perfect aspect of it all—the FBI would get all the fallout! The blame could in no way touch anyone else! And now it's all ruined!"

"You are incredibly stupid if you thought, even for one minute, that Gibbs was going to just let the murder of one of his agents go!" The other man said angrily in a slight British accent, speaking for the first time. "That man is like a dog with a bone! He would not have ever stopped until he found who had killed McGee! You're lucky I pulled the shot as soon as I recognized him! If I had known who he was to begin with I would never have agreed to this!" There was something in this man's voice that said that wasn't the only reason he wouldn't have agreed to this operation.

"Don't take the high road with me, Mr. Kort! You agreed, just as everyone involved did, that anyone who was washed out or left the Frankenstein project had to be dealt with lest we find ourselves with another Cobb!"

Trent Kort felt anger consume him. "Not McGee!" He yelled. "There is no need to worry about Tim McGee turning into Jonas Cobb! There is no way that would ever happen!" Trent clinched his hands to keep from reaching out and strangling the man standing before him. "Tim McGee is the best man I have ever met! Not even the Frankenstein Project could twist that!"

"Don't kid yourself, Kort!" The other man sneered. "By Agent Gibbs own words, Timothy McGee is exactly like Jonas Cobb! What was it that he said?" The man got a thoughtful look on his face. "Oh, yes,'A failure to the Navy, a embarrassment to the CIA and a disappointment to his father.' Now doesn't that describe McGee to a tee?" He asked in a disparaging voice.

Trent finally lost control of his anger and his hands closed around the other man's throat. "You listen to _**me**_, you bastard!" Trent hissed in a cold, angry voice, one furious blue eye glinting in the moonlight. "Tim McGee is no, in any way, a failure, embarrassment, or a disappointment! And if you try anything like this again Gibbs and his team isn't the only ones that you'll have to deal with!" Trent's hands squeezed in warning. "Clean up your mess all you want but leave McGee out of it! You've—_**We've all—" **_He stressed. "have done quite enough to that kid!" With that Trent let the other man go, watched him gasp for breath a few minutes, then moved to his car, got in and left. He hoped that the man had got the message about Tim and would pass it on to everyone else involved but he didn't hold out much hope. A message just wasn't a message without a broken bone or missing limb. Perhaps it would be a good idea to talk to another one of the major players in all this. _**Make**_ sure that his message got across. No one really _**needed**_ all their toes. A couple could be taken from each foot, that person would still be able to walk, and his message would still be sent. That thought bore serious consideration. But first he needed to talk to Tim.

_**~NCIS~**_

_**I WASN'T HAPPY WITH THIS AT FIRST BUT IT MAY VERY WELL TURN OUT TO BE MY FAVORITE CHAPTER! I HOPE EVERYONE WHO READS IT LIKES IT AS WELL. IF YOU DON'T, I STILL WANT TO THINK YOU FOR READING!**_


	6. Chapter 6

_DISCLAIMER:I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!_

_~NCIS~_

Tim had only been moved for a short time when the phone in his room rung. Courtney answered it as soon as it began to ring but it still woke Tim up. "Hello?"

She looked at Tim, questioning and he held out his hand. "Hello?"

"_Get rid of the woman."_

Tim tensed as soon as he heard the voice on the phone. Nothing good ever came when Trent Kort contacted him like this. "I have—"

"_I know about your guards. I've got it taken care of. Just get rid of the woman." _Came Trent's reply.

Tim glanced at Courtney. "Okay." He said and hung up before Trent could say anything else. Tim relaxed against the bed and closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. He had learned a long time ago that anything involving Trent Kort wasn't going to be good. "Hey, Court?" He said, without opening his eyes.

Courtney was immediately beside the bed. "Yes?" She asked, smoothing a soft hand over his forehead, causing Tim to sigh.

"Do you think that you could go to the cafeteria for me? I could really use a cold soda." Tim opened his eyes and looked at her. "You could use a break, anyway."

Courtney smiled at him softly. "I don't need a break but I will go get you a soda."

Tim wave to the closet that held his belongings. "My wallet's in there. Get lots of ice if you can." He instructed. He didn't want her to see a machine and get a soda out of it.

"I've got it covered." She said, picking up her bag. "Anything else?"

Tim thought for a minute. He really even didn't want the soda, it was just something to get her out of the room while he talked to Trent. "You know what I like." He said finally. "Just...pick me something."

"Alright." Courtney turned to leave.

"See if Tony and Ziva want anything." Tim said, stopping her. Courtney turned around and he could tell from the look on her face that she didn't want to even talk to them. Tim knew that she was angry on his behalf but he didn't want that. "Please, Courtney."

She took a deep breath and let it out. "Alright." She finally said, reluctantly.

Tim smiled. "Thanks."

Courtney wasn't happy but she nodded and left the room.

Tim settled back against the bed to wait for Trent. He knew Trent Kort. He knew that Trent was somewhere close. He had to be.

_~NCIS~_

Trent waited patiently around the corner from Tim's room. He was dressed in blue scrubs with a scrub hat covering his bald head. In his hands he held a hospital chart. He knew it would be tricky to get past Tim's partners after that FBI agent left but Trent had spent most of his life getting past tricky situations. He watched as Courtney left Tim's room, stopped to talk to Tony and Ziva, then walked to the elevators. Once she had disappeared, Trent waited for a minute and then rounded the corner at a fast pace, his head down, as if he was concentrating on the chart in his hands. He didn't even pause when he got to Tim's door, just walked right past Tony and Ziva, into the room. It still amazed him that trained officers didn't pay attention to people who they thought was supposed to be there. Trent came to a stop beside Tim's bed and a genuine smile came on his face as he looked at the sleeping man on the hospital bed. Tim looked so young when he slept. So much like he had looked when they first met. The smile faded from Trent's face. There were times that he truly missed the boy he had first known—the confident quirky kid that had laughed and loved without care or reservation. He missed the boy who had thought of life as an adventure just waiting to be experienced and looked at the world as if it was an computer and all he had to do to discover it's many mysteries was crack it's code. There was very little of that boy left in the man and Trent mourned his loss. He shook his head to dispel his less then pleasant thoughts and reached out a hand to wake Tim. He hated to do it but they only had so much time before that FBI agent came back.

_~NCIS~_

Tobias settled back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head. The more he found out about this the more concerned—and confused—he got. "This was a professional hit. The shooter knew what he was doing."

Ron nodded and leaned against Fornell's desk. "Tobias." He said in a low voice. "This assignment... it was all a setup. The only thing that was supposed to be achieved was Tim's murder. There was never anything on that computer. It was all a setup." He repeated. "And we fell for it."

Tobias shook his head. "I fell for it." He corrected, his own voice low. "I walked right into it. I brought Tim in. It was my idea. I almost got him killed." There was a world or regret and self-loathing in his voice.

Ron shook his head. "This is not your fault, Tobias. If it hadn't been you it would have been someone else. Someone wanted Tim dead." Ron hesitated. "There were only a handful of people who knew about this assignment, Tobias."

"I know, Ron." And he did know. Tobias just didn't want to admit—not even to himself—that one or more Directors of Federal Agencies had set up one of their own to be murdered. Tobias sighed and sat up, placing his elbows on his desk. "What I don't understand is why? What could this kid have done to deserve this? Why would _any _of these people want to kill Tim? I—I just don't get it, Ron." Tobias glanced around; he suddenly didn't feel safe in his own agency. "Until we know what's going on, we've got to be careful."

Ron nodded. He was feeling Tobias' uneasiness. Someone had set Tobias up to be the scapegoat for the kid's murder and they not only didn't know why—they didn't even know _who_.

"I mean it, Ron." Tobias warned. "Not a word to anyone about what we know—or what we don't know." Tobias sighed again, this time wearily."There is a lot we don't know, Ron." He said, putting words to Ron's thoughts.

Ron suddenly felt as tired as Tobias sounded. "What are we going to tell McGee?"

Tobias slumped back into his chair, feeling old. "Hell, I don't know, Ron. I don't even know what to tell Gibbs. And Gibbs is the one who will be here soon wanting answers."

Ron rolled his head around on his shoulders. "I've got a suggestion about what to tell Gibbs."

Tobias arched one gray eyebrow. "Yeah? What is that?"

Ron shrugged. "Until we know more, as little as possible." It was a suggestion that Courtney would have made. Something that they both had learned from Tobias.

Tobias gave a chuckle and shook his head. "You and Courtney."

Ron smiled. "You only have yourself to blame, you know." He pointed out. "You trained the both of us."

Tobias sobered up. "Got any suggestion about where we need to start to figure this out?"

"Director Vance seems like a good place to start." Ron said. "He was the one who blackmailed Tim into working with us."

"Our Director is the one who gave us the assignment." Tobias reminded his senior agent.

"We need to investigate whatever Tim's been doing. If we can find the reason, we'll know who." Ron added another piece to the puzzle. "I think we need to go to the hospital. Ask the kid some questions." He said, standing up from his perch on Tobias' desk.

Tobias stood up and slipped his jacket on. "I just hope he has the answers."

_~NCIS~_

Leon Vance closed his phone and sat back against his sofa with a weary sigh. He couldn't understand how this had all gotten so out of control. Project Frankenstein, despite it's name, was meant to be an asset to the country. He had meant it to _help _but it had been twisted beyond recognition, used to create a monster—a true Frankenstein—in Jonas Cobb. After Cobb was put down, Leon had agreed that the mess he had helped create needed to be cleaned up, but he had never intended Timothy McGee to become a casualty of that clean up. He knew better then most that Tim McGee had suffered enough at their hands. Leon had always liked that kid, from the first time he met him. He never believed that Tim should have been involved in anything to do with any of this. It was the kid's parents that had brought Tim to them. Leon had never understood how a parent could abandon their child.

Leon shook his head. He had done the same thing, hadn't he? Tim wasn't his child but he was his agent and he had left him out in the cold. It hadn't set right to manipulate Tim into working with Fornell's team, even when he had thought it was just an assignment. Anger consumed Leon. He should have known! He should have realized what was going on! He had almost gotten that kid killed because he had been too blind to see what was going on! Leon let out a sigh and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Now he had Gibbs and Fornell to worry about, too. There was no way that either of them were going to let this go. They would want answers and Leon had promised Tim when he had first become director that he would never reveal his involvement in the Frankenstein Project. He couldn't tell them the truth. Not without betraying Tim and Tim had been betrayed enough. So what was he going to tell them?

_~NCIS~_


	7. Chapter 7

~NCIS~

Trent gently shook Tim's shoulder, not wanting to startle him. "Hey, Tim."

Tim slowly opened his eyes, blinking to focus. "What? Trent?" It took a minute for Tim to know where he was. "Sorry. Didn't mean to fall asleep."

Trent smirked. "Pain killers." He said knowingly. "I remember."

Tim stiffened as the times that Trent had seen him on pain killers came to mind. "At least it's not the one that makes me run off at the mouth."

Trent gave a low chuckle, mindful of his audience out side the room. "They spent months and a lot of money training you to resist or deflect truth serum only to be done in by pain killers." He shook his head. "Ironic, isn't it? They would have done better training you to resist morphine."

Tim flinched as he remembered some of the methods that had been used to 'train' him. And not only to resist or deflect sodium pentathal, but torture as well.

Trent noticed the flinch and sobered up. "No, not ironic." He said softly. "Poetic justice, maybe?" Trent had done his part in trying to break the kid with the IQ that was off the charts. The people involved had thought it would be a great accomplishment to train someone with Tim's potential to survive capture. They had believed that Tim would be a great asset in war zones. He had exceeded even their expectations. They had thrown everything they had at him but he hadn't broken. He had survived their torture and not spoken a word. He had been pumped so full of drugs that he would have believed them if they had said the sky was green and the grass was blue, but instead of telling the information that they wanted, Tim had told everything else. One had to admire such integrity, such strength of character.

Tim looked at Trent silently. He knew that Trent had never wanted him involved in Frankenstein. Had never believed that it was right to experiment on kids but Trent had just been a training officer. He had had no choice but to obey his superiors. "What's up, Trent?" He asked softly, knowing that he had not come here to talk about the past.

Trent dropped his eyes to where his hand still rested on Tim's shoulder. "How are your parents?" He asked instead of answering Tim's question, even though they were pressed for time. "I heard that your father made Admiral." There was a hard note to his voice that he didn't even try to hide.

Tim sighed. "You can't really blame them, you know." They had talked about this before, but Trent never let it go. "They really had no idea what to do with me. I was just so..." He stopped to search for the word. "_different_... from what they knew. From what they had wanted. I was such a trouble maker. Always into everything. Always taking stuff a part. I just had to know how everything worked and I never believed when it was explained to me. I always had to discover the truth for myself." Tim recited the speech that he had been told so many times in a monologue. "They didn't know how to handle me."

Trent turned hard eyes to Tim."I can blame them." He said quietly. "I _do_ blame them." There was a dangerous tone to his voice that Tim knew only too well.

Tim shook his head. "Trent..."

"Don't make excuses for them, Tim!" Trent exploded. "They were your parents and they abandoned you to us!" Trent leaned closer to the bed. "They traded you so your father could advance in his career!"

Tim winced. It was true. And all the excuses he could give, all the reasons _why_, wouldn't change that. Tim wondered sometimes if that was the reason why he had so much trouble forming attachments as an adult. That deep down, he was afraid that if he did make friends or find another family, they would just trade him away like his parents had. But that was neither here nor there at the moment. Tim knew that Trent hadn't come here to discuss his parents. "Why are you here? I know that you didn't come all this way to yell at me for making excuses for my parents."

Trent forced himself to calm down. "No. I came here to discuss you being a little bit more careful when accepting assignments with other agencies. Especially ones given to you by your director." Trent made eye contact with Tim to let him know how serious he was. "I've told you before—the only person you can trust is Gibbs. He will never steer you wrong. He's why I wanted you at NCIS in the first place. You know that."

Tim straightened in his bed. "How did you...?" He trailed off as the rest of what Trent had said sunk in. "This wasn't just an assignment that went bad, was it?" He asked as one hand covered his wounded shoulder. Tim knew Trent well enough to pick up on what he wasn't saying.

Trent shook his head. "It seems that my erstwhile employers have decided that they need to clean up their mess."

"But why me!" Even as the question burst from him, Tim knew why. He felt all his energy leave him, deflating against his bed. "They're afraid I'm going to turn, just like Jonas did." Even the name of someone that Tim had believed was his friend hurt him. "They're afraid because we were so much alike that..." Tim trailed off, unable to put it in words.

Trent nodded. Even though he wasn't privy to their thought process, it wasn't hard to figure out. "I've told them, Tim." He hurried to say. "I've told them that they're wrong. And I warned them to leave you alone."

Tim turned stricken eyes to Trent. "I never wanted to be a part of Frankenstein in the first place!"

"I know, Tim."

But Tim wasn't listening to him. "Vance..." He couldn't keep the betrayal out of his voice. "Even Fornell..." He shook his head. "Gibbs trusts Fornell almost more than anyone!"

"No. Not Fornell." Trent denied swiftly. "I don't think even Vance knew what was truly going on, but I know that Fornell didn't know anything about this. If this had gone the way it was meant to, Fornell would have taken the fall for it."

Tim froze. "What?" He exclaimed, sitting up and then whimpering in pain when his wound flared up.

"Easy there, Tim." Trent soothed, laying a hand on Tim's good shoulder again. Tim looked at Trent as he tried to catch his breath through the pain, a question in his eyes.

Trent nodded. "They set him up, Tim." He said answering Tim's silent question.

Tim rubbed the hand on his good side down his face. "Oh, goodness!" He groaned in a pain filled voice. "I almost ruined a good man's life!"

Trent fairly shook with anger. "You—" He hissed, clenching his teeth and forcing himself to calm down a little. "You didn't do anything, Tim. This—This whole situation, is in no way, your fault!"

The younger man just stared at Trent, and he could tell that Tim didn't believe him.

"What do I do?" Tim asked after a minute. "What do I tell everyone?"

"You do nothing but get better. You let me handle this." Trent said and looked at the younger man for the first time with guilt. "Don't say anything." A smile twisted his lips. "You still can't lie worth anything." That was something that hadn't changed. He couldn't lie as a boy and he couldn't lie as a man.

"Okay." Tim nodded and released a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. "Alright."

Trent made his way to the door but paused before he opened it. "I'll call you in a couple of days." He said before he disappeared through the door.

Tim settled back against his bed, his mind in turmoil. He wanted to think about things, but he was asleep before he was even settled good.

_~NCIS~_

Courtney had only been back from the cafeteria for a short time when Ron and Tobias came. She immediately stood up and went to stand by the bed where Tim lay sleeping.

Ron and Tobias exchanged glances because they hadn't discussed what to tell Courtney. Courtney was a professional except when people she cared about were in trouble. Then she became a neurotic mess. They couldn't have her falling apart now, but they would need her expertise.

Tobias cleared his throat. "Courtney." He started. "Ron and I... We've been going over what happened."

"And?" Courtney prompted when he didn't say anything else.

Ron and Tobias exchanged looks again. "This was too well planned for it to be a spur of the moment thing. The shooter was waiting for us. Waiting for..." He didn't finish, just looked at the man asleep on the bed.

Courtney's eyes widened at the implications at the sentence. "He was after Tim..." She whispered, trailing off. She turned dove gray eyes on her friend in dawning horror, her brilliant mind coming to the same conclusion that they had. The intel they had been given, Tim being blackmailed into working with them on this assignment, the orders not to tell Gibbs. It had all been a set-up. Tim McGee had never been meant to leave that room alive. Courtney met Tobias eyes grimly. "What do we do?"

"We find out why and who and we stop them." Tobias said simply.

"What do we know?"

Tobias and Ron exchanged glances again. "You already know everything we know, Courtney." Tobias said, warning Ron with his eyes not to say anything else.

"Then where do we start?" She practically wailed.

"We're hoping we can get a starting point from Tim." Ron said in a soothing voice.

"A starting point for what, Sacks?" Tim asked, having woken up to hear the last question. He didn't miss the look that Ron shared with Tobias before turning his eyes to Tim.

"We've gone over everything from last night, Tim." Ron started. "And..." And how do you tell someone that they have become the target of a professional killer? Ron had never had to do that before. Usually he dealt with the victims after the incident had happened. He glanced helplessly at Tobias.

Tobias stepped closer to Tim. "You were the target all along, Tim. You were never meant to survive this assignment."

Tim's face closed up but his eyes showed no surprise about their revelation. "You already knew that."

"Why would you say that?" Tim asked, being mindful of Trent's warning not to lie.

"Who would benefit from your death, McGee?" Tobias asked bluntly. "What do you know that someone would kill you to keep it hidden?"

"There is no one that would really benefit from my death." Tim said carefully. It was not _exactly_ a lie but it was close enough to one that Tim shifted uncomfortably.

Tobias' eyes narrowed. He could tell that Tim wasn't telling everything he knew. And there was a look that crossed Tim's face that bothered him. He couldn't quite identify it. Was it...anguish? "Are you sure? You haven't come across something in your work? There's nothing in your past that someone doesn't want to come out? You haven't seen something you shouldn't have?" He fired the questions one after the other, hoping to trip Tim up. "There's absolutely no one that you can think of that would want you dead?"

Tim scoffed at that last question. "I'm a federal agent, Tobias. There are a lot of people that wouldn't lose any sleep if I turned up dead."

Tobias questioned Tim for another half hour but Tim kept up his denial. The more that he pretended not to know anything, the more disturbed Tobias got. Finally, he decided that he wouldn't be learning anything new and he and Ron left, ordering Courtney to stay. They passed Tony and Ziva and walked to the elevator, not saying anything.

Ron turned to Tobias as soon as the elevator doors closed. "He knows something."

Tobias leaned wearily back against the elevator wall. "I know, Ron." Tobias closed his eyes as he remembered the look on Tim's face. "And it's bad enough that he can't—or won't—speak of it."

"What can be so bad that he can't bring himself to even talk about it?" Ron asked.

Tobias had his suspicions. "Something he can't forgive himself for." Tobias said in the quiet silver box. "Something he believes others will find unforgivable."

Ron nodded but remained silent for the rest of the ride. It was as they were walking out of the front doors of the hospital that he said what was on his mind. "It might be just us, Tobias." He said with a shrug. "The kid doesn't trust us. Gibbs might know what's going on."

Tobias got a thoughtful look on his face. "No, I don't think so." He said after a minute, shaking his head. "There was just something about the way..." Tobias trailed off with a shrug, unable to put what he meant into words.

They came to the car and Ron walked to the passenger side. "I know what you mean." He said and got into the car. "What are _we _going to tell Gibbs?" He asked, fastening his seat belt.

Tobias put the car into gear and backed out. "We've already talked about what to tell Gibbs." Tobias said, pulling out of the hospital parking garage. "As little as possible."

"But that was before—"

"What do you want to tell him, Ron?" Tobias exclaimed, cutting off what his senior agent was going to say. "That one of his agents is keeping secrets that someone is willing to kill to keep hidden?" He kept on angrily. "Someone high enough to not only set Tim up, but me as well? We really don't know if that is true!" He slammed his fist against the steering wheel, causing the car to drift to the side and Ron grabbed the door handle. "All we have is speculation!"

"But doesn't Gibbs usually run off of speculation? Off his _gut_?" Ron pointed out.

The anger drained from Tobias and for the first time since meeting him, to Ron, he looked...old.

"For some reason, Tim can't tell Gibbs what is going on. He already doesn't trust us, if we tell Gibbs what we suspect, tell him that one of his agents might just as well be lying to him, then we _prove_ to Tim that he can't trust us."

Ron nodded. "Then what do we do?" He asked after a minute.

"We investigate." Tobias said, turning into the FBI building driveway. "We start with an in-depth background check on Tim and go from there." Tobias was suddenly apprehensive, not sure he was ready to know what they would find.

~NCIS~


	8. Chapter 8

_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING_

_~NCIS~_

Tobias looked up as Ron came to a stop by his desk. "You talk to his parents?" He asked, leaning back in his chair. He ran his hand over his face. He was so tired.

Ron perched on the edge of Tobias' desk. "Yeah."

"And?" Tobias prompted when Ron didn't continue.

Ron gave a deep sigh and wearily shook his head. "They have talked to him exactly once in the past seven years." Ron couldn't understand that. He talked to his parents every Sunday and had dinner at his childhood home once a month.

Tobias raised an eyebrow. "Once?"

Ron nodded. "And they didn't exactly stay in touch before they stopped talking."

Tobias was quiet for a few minutes, letting that information sink in. "Did she say why they stopped talking?" He asked eventually.

Ron shrugged. "Just said they ran out of stuff to say." How do you run out of things to talk about? His parents wanted to know everything he could tell them about the things he did.

Tobias shook his head. He couldn't imagine running out of stuff to talk about with his daughter, even when she became an adult and had her own life. "Did she say why they talked the last time?"

"Said Tim ran into his grandmother and she suggested he make the call. They only talked for a few minutes and he talked to his father mostly about his promotion."

Tobias nodded to show that he had heard, even though he was studying the folder that lay open on his desk.

"What did you find out?" Ron asked, nodding his head to the folder.

Tobias hesitated for a minute. "Nothing really. Just more pieces to the puzzle."

It was Ron's turn to raise an eyebrow.

Tobias sighed. "Everything in this is perfectly normal." He said, pushing the folder towards Ron. "Too normal." Tobias flipped a couple of pages. "The only thing out of the ordinary that I could see is that he had a car accident when he was sixteen and that really isn't out of the ordinary except..." Tobias picked up a few papers and handed them to Ron. "I'm no doctor, but does that look like the kind of injuries you would get from crashing your car?"

Ron glanced down at the papers to see that it was part of a medical file. "I don't know, Tobias." He said with a shrug. "Maybe?"

"Some of them can be explained by an accident, Ron, but not all. I'll have to talk to a doctor but..." He shook his head.

"So what are you thinking?" Ron asked. "Child abuse? It would explain the not talking."

"This kid wasn't simply abused." Tobias said, flipping the pages in Ron's hands. "He was tortured." Tobias picked something up from his desk and handed it to his senior agent. "Then there's this. Something else that doesn't add up."

Ron read the paper, his dark eyes widening. "I knew the kid was smart." He said shaking his head. "But I had no idea..."

"I know." Tobias agreed. "Neither did I." He settled back into his chair again. "So what is a guy that could choose his position at any of the agencies, at any of the government programs, doing working in obscurity as an computer tech at an agency that most people have never even heard of?" He asked. "I mean, Tim could be running NASA if he wanted."

Ron nodded. "No answers. Just a lot more questions." He said, saying what they were both thinking. "What's our next step?"

Tobias stood up. "I want to get those records examined by a doctor. See if I'm right about those injuries." He shouldered into his jacket. "Then I think we should talk to McGee's sister."

Ron picked his own coat up and put it on. "But does this have anything to do with why someone wants Tim dead?" He asked as they walked to the elevator. "I mean, how is this going to help us find the shooter?"

"It's not." He said, his voice hard. "I just want to know." He wanted to know so that if he ever had the pleasure of meeting Admiral McGee he could be sure and greet him properly.

Ron raised an eyebrow when Tobias pushed the button for the ground floor. "I thought you wanted to talk to the doctor about Tim's injuries?"

"I do." He said as he led the way outside. "But I'm going to a doctor that I trust implicitly. I can't say that about our doctors."

Tobias got into the car, backed out as soon as Ron had his door closed, and pointed his car towards the navy yard. Tobias trusted Gibbs and Gibbs trusted Ducky. Until he knew how deep the infestation was at his own agency, he would have to depend on Ducky to get his answers.  
><em>~NCIS~<em>

Leon Vance looked up as the door to his office flew open and Gibbs walked in. He had been expecting this visit ever since he had got here. He still wasn't sure what he would say to the man. He thought that he would just see how much Gibbs knew and go from there. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this time, Jethro?"

Gibbs stormed over to Leon's desk and place his hands down flat on it's surface, leaning over until he was face to face with Leon. "Want to tell me why one of my agents was working an op and I wasn't told?"

"You're talking about McGee."

Gibbs leaned even closer. "Do you have any other members of my team working on other assignments?"

Leon pushed his chair back from his desk. "No."

"We had a deal! You said that you wouldn't pull a member of my team into anything without me knowing! Not after last time!" Gibbs started to furiously pace back and forth. "And McGee? What the hell was he thinking, keeping this a secret? How am I supposed to watch his back if I don't even know what's going on?"

Leon watched Gibbs pace for a few minutes. "McGee didn't want to take this assignment. He didn't have a choice, Jethro." He said finally.

Gibbs stopped mid-pace and turned narrowed eyes on the Director. "What do you mean, he didn't have a choice?" He hissed through clenched teeth.

Leon sighed. This wouldn't go over well. "He was told that if he didn't cooperate then his employment at NCIS would be terminated. That included not telling you." Leon hadn't understood at the time why it was so important that Gibbs not know, but now he did. Tobias Fornell was a good agent and he had a good team, but he wasn't Gibbs and his team didn't even come close to Gibbs' team. Fornell didn't have the sniper's eye that Gibbs had and his team didn't look at everything from the perspective of a beat cop or a trained Mossad operative. If Gibbs had been involved, then they would have seen the setup a mile away.

"And you agreed to that!" Gibbs asked incredulously.

Leon straightened. "Sometimes I don't have a choice, either, Jethro." Leon stared Gibbs down, willing him to hear what he wasn't saying.

Gibbs froze. "So that's the way it is." He said softly.

"We all follow orders, Jethro." Leon had thought a lot about the way to handle this and he had decided that the best way was to give as many clues as possible without coming out and betraying Tim. He knew why Tim wanted to keep his involvement in Project Frankenstein and the CIA a secret, especially after the Jonas Cobb fiasco and Leon wouldn't tell that secret. But that didn't mean he couldn't do everything in his power to lead Gibbs to the truth. He would protect Tim's life while keeping his secret.

Gibbs pulled a chair in front of Leon's desk. "Tell me about this operation, Leon. What was the objective? What went wrong? Is McGee in danger?" Gibbs leaned forward. "I have Tony and Ziva on protection detail but is there really a need for that?" Usually Gibbs wouldn't ask about the protection and potential danger of one of his agents but since he had no idea what was going on he would this time. Besides, he really wanted to hear what Leon had to say. And it didn't mean he would actually listen to Leon's opinion on the danger to McGee. He would trust his gut on that.

~NCIS~


	9. Chapter 9

~NCIS~

"What do you want to know?" Ducky asked as he opened the medical file that the FBI agent handed him. Ducky had been quite surprised to find Fornell and Sacks waiting for him when he walked into the autopsy suite that morning. He had become even more surprised by their request, wondering why they didn't go to one of their own doctors.

"Anything you can tell me."

Ducky looked over the medical file in front of him, a sickening feeling coming over him. "At first glance, I can tell you that someone was very cruel to this young man once upon a time." Ducky said, his voice quiet. "Very, very cruel."

Tobias and Ron shared a look.

"Then these injuries are not the result of a car accident." It was more a statement then a question.

"No." Ducky said, shaking his head absently as he studied the file in his hands. He was silent for a few minutes. "Some of them can be explained away that way." He clarified. "But some of these..." He shook his head in disgust. Ducky had seen injuries like these before. A whole lifetime ago, in a war zone. One never forgets the results of torture on the human body. Ducky walked over to the machine on the wall and put up various x-rays. "Look at this." He said, pointing to the first x-ray. "This bone wasn't just broken or even badly broken. It was completely shattered." He stared at the x-ray for a minute. "You can see that it was replaced by a rod." He shook his head. "The sheer magnitude of force that would be needed to accomplish that..." He trailed off. "And there is this." Ducky pointed to the second x-ray.

Tobias could tell that this was an x-ray of Tim's hand.

"I'm not saying that a finger couldn't be broken in a car crash. But all fingers on both hands?" Ducky pointed at the picture. "It's a statistical impossibility. And this clearly shows that all the breaks wasn't done at the same time." He pointed to three different fingers. "These were already healing when these others," Ducky touched the third x-ray. "were broken." Ducky moved onto the fourth x-ray. "And then this. A hair-line fracture of the skull. The improbability of this injury happening in a car accident is very high, considering the position." Ducky took down and replaced the x-rays. The damage these new ones showed saddened him and angered him at the same time. "See this?" He asked pointing to the first x-ray. "This is bruising that goes all the way to the bone. There is no way that a car wreck could cause this kind of bruising to the feet. Someone—" Ducky vibrated with anger. "Someone didn't want this man to be able to walk, probably hit him with a steel pipe so he wouldn't be able to get away." He speculated.

The more Ducky went over the injuries the angrier Tobias and Ron got. They would have been mad over anyone with injuries like this. But when it was someone they knew, someone they liked...

Ducky had only touched on what was in the medial record but he found he couldn't go on, such was his horror at the atrocities that had been perpetrated against this lad. "Your agent..." He trailed off, unable to continue. He was fishing, hoping to discover a clue.

"Not our agent." Ron said without thinking. He looked sheepish when Tobias glared at him.

"Not your agent? I thought..." Ducky's eyes widened. "One of our agents?" He questioned. He deduced from the glare that Tobias leveled Ron's way that he had hit the nail on the head. "Who?"

Tobias shifted uncomfortably as he cursed Ron silently. He didn't understand why, but he didn't want to tell the good doctor whose medical file it was. The file was part of Tim's official record. It wasn't like Ducky couldn't find out who it was if he really wanted to know, but Tobias was sure he couldn't be the one to put words to what Tim had obviously gone through. Tobias just shook his head.

Ducky could see he wouldn't find out the answer he wanted so he decided to let it go, something that was very out of character for him. He blamed his emotional turmoil.

"Come on, Ron." Tobias said, preparing to leave.

"There's more." Ducky said quietly.

But Tobias didn't want to know more. Not right now. He might want to know more later, but not now.

"We don't have time now, Doctor Mallard." He said, reaching for the x-rays and medical file. He walked out of autopsy and towards the elevator, leaving his senior agent to follow.

Ron waited until the elevator doors were closed before turning to his boss. "Those injuries..." He couldn't finish. He wasn't sure what he was asking anyway.

Tobias leaned wearily against the metal wall, suddenly exhausted. "I know, Ron." He pinched the bridge of his nose as what he had learned from Ducky flashed through his mind. He saw depravity almost every day in his line of work. It had stopped surprising him what people could do to each other. What husbands could do to wives. What parents could do to children. So why was he so shocked about this? What bothered him so much about the thought of Tim being a victim? This had obviously happened years ago. It was over and done with. Tobias didn't really think his parents had had anything to do with the attempt on Tim's life. So why did it matter now? He didn't know. Tobias just knew that, for whatever reason, it did matter now.

"So..." Ron kept his dark eyes carefully on the doors in front of him. "You're still thinking...abuse?"

Tobias straightened up as the lift came to a stop. "I don't know what I think." He said as he followed the younger man off the elevator and out of the building.

_~NCIS~_

After leaving the Navy Yard, Tobias and Ron made their way to Sarah McGee's place of work. After graduating from college, while she researched and wrote her great American novel, Tim's sister paid the bills by working as a waitress at a popular Washington restaurant. They flashed their badges at the hostess and waited at the bar for Sarah. Having never met the younger McGee, but considering her tall, fair-haired, fair-skinned, green-eyed brother, the petite, chocolate haired, chocolate eyed, olive-skinned young woman that walked up to them in the slim black skirt and white button down shirt of the other waitresses was not what either of them was expecting.

"Sarah McGee?" Tobias questioned just to make sure that they had the right person.

"Yes?" Sarah answered curiously. When her boss had come and said that there was some federal agents asking to talk to her, she had thought that it was some of her brother's co-workers.

"I'm Tobias Fornell and this is Ron Sacks." Tobias said, indicating Ron. "We're with the FBI. We would like to ask you some questions."

Sarah raised a well-groomed chocolate eyebrow. "What is this concerning?"

"An attempt was made on your brother's life. We are conducting an investigation into who may hold a grudge against Agent McGee." Tobias had deliberately not called Sarah McGee about Tim's injury, hoping to catch her off guard. Judging by the worry that crossed her face, he had.

Sarah raised a hand to her mouth. "Is—Is he—"

"He's fine." Ron said. "Recovering."

Sarah let out a relieved breath. She loved her brother, even if he did scare her at times. "Where is he? Can I see him?"

"It might be better to stay away for right now." Tobias said. "You can call and check on him, if you want." He added when her face fell.

"Oh." Sarah said and nodded. "Okay." She started to walk away, hoping to get out of talking to the two agents. She had a bad feeling about what questions they wanted her to answer.

"Wait, Miss McGee." Ron stopped her. "We're not done."

Both Ron and Tobias could see the apprehension on her face when she turned back to them.

"What can I tell you?" She asked defensively. "I don't know who hurt my brother."

The defensiveness sent off alarm bells in Tobias. "Do you know of anyone who has a grudge against your brother?" Tobias studied the young woman in front of him carefully, looking for any sign of deception.

Sarah's eyes darted around, not focusing on either agent. "My brother's a cop. He's pissed a lot of people off."

Tobias stiffened as Sarah basically said the same thing that Tim had. He started to ask if she had been in contact with Tim that day but didn't. "I'm talking about before he joined NCIS." He asked instead. "Does he have any enemies from back then?" Tobias paused, choosing his next words carefully. "We know that your brother doesn't have much contact with your parents. What can you tell us about the reason for their falling out?" He knew what Mrs. McGee had told his senior agent, but Tobias wanted to see what Sarah McGee would tell him. He didn't know what she knew but he could tell that she knew something.

Sarah was very careful to avoid Tobias' first question. "Tim is...different. He's always been different." She looked at Tobias. "He's smart, you know? Beyond smart. He's brilliant in ways that most people can't even begin to comprehend." Her eyes pretty brown eyes dropped. "My parents just don't understand that kind of intelligence. They don't understand him." That was one of the reasons why her parents had sent him to be a part of that project when he was just a teenager.

Ron and Tobias stared at the youngest McGee in horror. To them, it sounded like Sarah was rationalizing Tim being abused.

"The kinds of things that he's done, the kinds of things that he's been a part of..." She shook her head as she remembered the stuff that she had discovered by accident about her brother one night when she had been staying at his apartment. A whole side of Tim that she had never knew existed. These agents didn't know him the way that she did. Sarah knew that he was more than just the computer specialist that everyone thought he was.

~NCIS~

_I tried to get this out earlier but I had a killer headache._

_I would like to thank Ensign Cole for the great idea. I only had a vague plan of how McGee was involved in Frankenstein but thanks to Ensign Cole it's turning out to have a lot more detail to what I had planned and I think everyone is going to love it! Another chapter should be up tomorrow. It's going to start to really pick up in the next few chapters!_


	10. Chapter 10

~NCIS~

Jethro Gibbs had thought that he had never been so angry as he had been a few hours before, but the anger he had felt then was nothing compared to the anger he felt now. "And you didn't see anything wrong with this operation from the get go?" Gibbs asked Leon incredulously, the respect and confidence he had had in the director taking a nose dive. Leon Vance should have been a good enough investigator to have smelled the stink of this a mile away. Gibbs closed the file he had just been reading and sat back in his chair.

Leon shrugged. "I had a lot going on at the time this came up." He offered lamely.

"So you sent my agent in blind, with people you knew he wouldn't trust to watch his back!" Gibbs sputtered in disbelief.

Leon was fascinated, even though he knew his mind should have been elsewhere. He just couldn't help but wonder if this was the first time Gibbs had _sputtered_. He thought it probably was.

"Leon!"

The director shook his head and tried to pay attention to the Team Leader.

"What the hell is going on here!"

Before Leon could say anything his intercom buzzed. Leon reached to answer it with a sense of foreboding. For some reason, he had a feeling he should have just stayed at home and pulled the covers over his head.

~_NCIS~_

Tobias and Ron questioned Sarah for thirty more minutes but it became apparent that she wasn't going to say anything more than her brother had. Short of treating her like a suspect and carting her in to interrogation—something that they couldn't do with the leak at their agency, even if they were inclined to do it, which at this time, they're weren't—Tobias knew that they weren't going to get any useful information—about who would want Tim dead or about the suspected abuse—so he decided to cut their losses and head back to the Hoover Building. Tobias led the way out to their car,lost in thought. He kept going over everything in his mind until it became a swirl. Finally, he decided to employ an old investigator's trick—take a step back, clear your mind, start from the beginning. You sometimes could see what you missed by getting a new perspective. When they got back to the Hoover Building, they would have to look over the information again; it might be prudent to take a look at Sarah McGee while they were at it. Her parents, too.

"She's knows something." Ron said after they had driven in silence for a few minutes. It was not lost on him that he had said the same thing about her brother just a few hours before.

"Yeah." Tobias said, not taking his eyes off the road. "And Tim knows something. But is what Sarah McGee hiding the same thing that Tim is hiding?" Tobias mused out loud. "I don't know."

Ron shook his head. "I don't know, either." Ron was silent a moment, going over what they knew. "Do you thing Tim's parents had anything to do with the attempt to kill him?"

Tobias released a hard breath. "No." He admitted. "Not really. But that don't mean that someone might not want to make an example of him."

Ron's dark eyes got wide. "You think that the kid's parents might be the real target? That they might have told him something when they talked that someone would want to kill to keep hidden?"

"You got to admit the timing of that phone call is awful suspicious. According to Tim's file, Admiral McGee has had his hand in a lot of the Navy's special projects." Tobias knew that he was reaching, but something had clicked just then when he had thought about the McGee's, not as Tim's parents, but as naval personnel. Something that had made a big stink when he was a rookie FBI agent. He couldn't place the memory, but it would come back to him.

"Do you thing that Sarah McGee is in danger?"

That made Tobias pause because he really couldn't say for sure. If it was something about Tim and not his parents, that someone wanted to eliminate him over, then,no, she wasn't in danger. But if it was something to do with their parents, then it stands to reason that if one McGee kid was in danger then both was in danger, just of different sorts. But if that was true, then Sarah McGee could have been eliminated at any time. Why go after Tim, who would be in the company of armed FBI agents, first? Tobias felt a shiver of unease run down his spine as realization dawned on him. He had discovered the set-up but hadn't really had time to think about it. Whoever it was that went after Tim, did so _because_ Tim would be in the company of FBI agents. Whoever it was, didn't want there to be no question of the cause or reason of Tim's death. In an operation gone wrong, Tobias, as coordinator and Team Leader, would take all the fallout. Everyone involved would be too busy mourning McGee or scrambling to cover their collective asses to be to worried about the exact position of the shooter or the trajectory of the bullet or who came in first. The information would all be cataloged but wouldn't _actually_ be paid attention to. It would all fall through the cracks while Tobias became _collateral damage._ That was a term that Tobias had learned to hate in his tenure with the FBI. He had never approved of it, refused to even consider being a part of such a thing, and he had been _asked_, numerous times. It meant that an agent had to be sacrificed for the greater good of the agency. Mostly,it was agents that people wouldn't miss. Not outstanding or particularly ambitious men and some women who could disappear and no one would notice them gone. It was sad but it happened more often than people would think. Tobias felt bitterness well up. He'd spent almost his whole adult life in service of his country, sacrificed his relationships with his parents, his siblings, his ex-wife, friends, and almost his daughter to protect his countrymen, his country and their secrets, and this was how he was repaid? _Collateral Damage!_ Thought of as someone who wouldn't be missed? Anger burned brightly in him. McGee hadn't been the only one betrayed.

Ron looked at his team leader, telling by the expressions that ran across his face, his thoughts weren't pleasant thoughts. "Should we put Sarah McGee under surveillance, Tobias?" Ron prodded.

"No." Tobias shook his head. "She may know something but I don't think that she's in any danger."

Tobias' cell phone rung then and Ron didn't need Tobias to answer it to know who it was. Even Gibbs' phone rung with impatience. Ron eyed the offending instrument until Tobias cut it off and threw it in the back seat.

Ron sighed. "You're going to have to talk to him sometime."

Tobias wearily rubbed a hand down his face as they stopped at a stoplight. "I know. It's just..." Tobias trailed off as the light turned green. "He's going to want answers." He continued after a minute. "All we have are more questions. I've got to know more of what's going on before I can decide what to tell Gibbs, even if all I tell him is as little as possible." Suddenly, he was sure that he didn't want to know more. Tobias Fornell was sure that knowing more then what he already knew would finishing breaking the heart that had cracked when someone who they should have been able to trust, someone that should have had their best interests at heart, betrayed them. The heart of a man that had been battered by the horrors of a job that he had always done to the utmost best of his ability. The job that he did, not because of the prestige or power that came with being a federal agent, but because he loved his country, believed in the laws that he was supposed to up hold. Tobias shook his head to dispel his thoughts and concentrated on the conversation.

Ron nodded. "So what do we do?"

Tobias made the turn into the FBI driveway. "Let's look into the Admiral. See what we can discover about the projects he's been involved in." Tobias felt..._old_...all of a sudden. He had never felt old before, even though he was aware that he was approaching old age. Now, he felt like a dinosaur, whose age was ending.

_~NCIS~_

Tony opened the room to his Probie's room and quietly slipped in. This was his first chance to check on the junior agent. Courtney had walked to the cafeteria again, this time taking Ziva with her. It was a welcome relief. He couldn't have gotten in here with Courtney in here or Ziva out there. They wouldn't have let him. They were afraid that he would act the clown or play the frat boy, or even worse, be the federal agent. All Tony wanted was to act the brother. Oh, he knew that Tim didn't consider him family or really, even a friend, but Tony wanted to be a brother to Tim. He wanted to get past the barrier that Tim put between him and everyone else. For all his willingness to help in any given situation, all his eagerness to be a part of the team—inside and outside work—for all his desire to be a member of their NCIS family, for all his openness, there was only so far that Tim would allow them into his life. The man may be incapable of lying, but he sure knew how to keep a secret. And what he kept secret most was himself. They had worked together almost eight years and Tony still knew very little about his Probie, and most of what he did know he had learned by accident. Maybe it was Tony's fault. Maybe he had given Tim the impression that all he wanted was a working relationship. It wasn't like Tony was that great a sharer—at least not about the things that matter. But that was about to change. If to it took Tony opening up and blubbering like a girl to make Tim a part of their family then that's what would happen. Tony had made a decision while standing outside this room. Things were going to change. And the first change was going to be with him. He would open himself up to his Probie and by doing so maybe Tim would open up to him. Tony's eyes were drawn to Tim's shoulder wound. He could have lost Tim to that wound very easily. The loss that would have brought to Tony's life couldn't even be described. And what was worse, Tony could have lost him without truly knowing him. But he would remedy that. Fear shivered down Tony's spine as a thought came to him—what if Tim liked the way things were? It was true that Tony had never reached out to the junior agent, but Tim had never reached out to Tony, either. If Tim had wanted to be Tony's friend—a real friend and not a work friend—then he would have made an overture a long time ago, wouldn't he? Sure, Tim was always ready to lend a hand whenever he was needed, but Tim did that with everyone. He had never given any indication that he wanted the deeper, brother-like relationship that Tony wanted. Would Tim walk in the door that Tony was trying to open? Or would he slam it shut and barricade himself on the other side?

_~NCIS~_


	11. Chapter 11

_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!_

~_NCIS~_

"You got anything yet?" Tobias asked as he sat the tall cup of black coffee on his senior agent's desk. With the leak in their agency, Tobias had debated whether or not it would be wise to try to access the files they needed from their office, but the truth of the matter was, neither of them were good enough with a computer to get in from anywhere else.

Ron slammed a hand down on his keyboard in frustration. "No!"He exclaimed furiously. "Apparently I don't have high enough clearance to get to the truth of the projects that Tim's father is or has been involved in and I don't have the skills to hack my way in." He picked up the cup and took a long drink from it.

Tobias perched on the agent's desk and thought a minute. "Okay. Give it another hour. Find what you can. Then head to the hospital with what you got and give it to Courtney to see what she can do with it." Tobias gave his agent a sharp look. Ron had been up and on the go for over thirty hours. Needless to say he was looking a little worse for wear. "Then go home and get some sleep. I'll call when I've got something." There was no need to instruct Ron to have Courtney call him first. They both knew when she got into the classified files, her first call would be to Tobias.

Ron took another drink of his coffee before sitting it down. "Where are you going to go?" He was a little uneasy with letting his boss out of his sight. It wasn't just Tim that someone was trying to get rid of, even if that someone would have gotten rid of Tobias another way.

Tobias slumped tiredly and sighed. "It's time to I talked to Gibbs." He just had no idea what to tell him when he did talk to him. "Then I'll be with the kid." He knew that Gibbs would have posted another security detail, but Tobias wasn't sure that they would be able to trust the NCIS agents, considering that they suspected Vance was part of the conspiracy to kill Tim. With the images of Tim's x-rays and Ducky's explanation of them still in his head, he needed to be there.

Ron looked at Tobias with concern. "You need to go home to, Tobias." The dark circles under his eyes were casting shadows over the rest of his lined face making him look older then he really was.

Tobias rubbed a hand over his burning eyes. "I'll get all the rest I need when this is over." And he would. This was it for him. He didn't have the heart to continue anymore once Tim was safe.

Something in Tobias' voice disturbed him, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. He looked at his Team Leader and wondered what was going through his head.

"I'm going to call in some favors and get the gossip on the McGees. I might be able to get the unofficial version of some of those projects, too." There was still something tingling at the back of his mind. He had an old friend from his probie days that had just retired after thirty years in the Navy who owed him and he intended to collect. He had checked the records—another favor that had been called in—and Rich had served with Admiral McGee. Rich had always been something of a busybody—DiNozzo reminded him of Rich at times. If there was anything to know that wasn't in the records then he would probably know it and if he didn't then Rich would know who would know it.

_~NCIS~_

Gibbs stalked through the hospital corridors, nurses and some doctors moving out of his way. He hadn't got his answers out of Vance so he was determined to get them from his agent. Before leaving he had made arrangements with Balboa's team to relieve Tony and Ziva on protection detail. It wasn't exactly how it was supposed to be done. It was actually Vance who was supposed to give out protection assignments, but Gibbs knew that he could trust Balboa and his people and he couldn't say the same for Vance. Whoever Vance might have chosen would have been loyal to him. The infamous Gibbs' gut was tingling. It was saying that there was more going on here then just an operation gone bad and it had been saying it ever sense he'd read that file and talked to Vance. He turned the corner and froze for a second when he saw the four people that stood outside Tim's room. It didn't surprise him that his two agents hadn't left yet. He continued the short distance to Tim's room.

"Leave." He barked out to Tony and Ziva. "Be back in twelve hours." He didn't even brake stride before entering Tim's room, only to come up short at seeing Tobias sitting in a chair pulled close to Tim's side, facing the door, his hand on his sidearm.

"Something you need to tell me, Tobias?" Gibbs growled, his eyes on the hand that hadn't yet left his gun. He knew that Tim was in danger!

Tobias looked at Gibbs an expression on his face that Gibbs couldn't identify.

"Did you know he was abused, Jethro?" He asked as he turned his head to look at the sleeping man on the bed. For some reason, even though he knew it was irrational, Tobias felt a sense of betrayal that his friend hadn't told him about Tim's past. "And why in the world is this kid working as a computer tech!" He bit out furiously. "With a mind like his, he could be doing just about anything and you have him running credit checks and hacking phone records!" He exclaimed, incredulously.

Gibbs blinked. "What the hell are you talking about, Tobias!" Gibbs exclaimed impatiently. Tobias had been avoiding his calls all day and now that they were in the same place, he wasn't making sense.

Tobias held out a file to his friend. "I'm talking about this!" He said through clenched teeth.

"What is this?" Gibbs asked as he flipped open the file. His brows drew together as he turned through the pages. "Why are you back-grounding _my_ agent, Tobias?" Gibbs asked furiously.

Tobias didn't say anything just raised one silver eyebrow at him and reached out to turn to a certain page.

Gibbs read the page that Tobias turned to, an eyebrow raising of his own as he kept on skimming unto the next page. When he had finished, he closed the file and through it into his friend's lap. "I already know about McGee's accident, Tobias. He told Tony his first year on the team! What would that have to do with anything anyway?"

Tim was wondering the same thing. He had woken up sometime after their conversation had started. He had kept his breathing regulated and stayed still so that he could find out how much they knew. It was one of the first things that Trent had taught him. When waking in hostile territory, stay as you are until you know the lay of the land, while gathering as much information as you can. It might also delay torture. Torturers want their prey to be awake so that they can take pleasure in their work. They were sadistic like that. Memories threatened to overwhelm him but Tim managed to push them back under his control and tuned back into the conversation.

Tobias reached out again and flipped a few pages until he came to the listed injuries. He settled back into his chair and waited, knowing that his friend would come to the same conclusion.

Gibbs had seen enough accident reports and medical files to see what had Tobias in such a state. His eyes zeroed in on Tobias, silently asking a question.

The FBI agent nodded. "I took it to your ME, Jethro. Confirmed what I already knew. Explained some of the injuries. Says there are a lot more." Tobias shook his head. "But I didn't want to know anymore."

Gibbs clenched his hands into fists, crumbling the file as he did. He wanted to know more. He wanted to know how much the person who did this to his agent needed to suffer before he died. His eyes widened as a thought occurred to him.

"He lied." Gibbs breathed softly, his eyes flying to his agent. "Tim _lied_!" Gibbs clenched his hands tighter. "There are no way he got these injuries by wrecking his car!" His eyes narrowed as he watched his junior agent start on the bed and then pinch his lips together.

Tim forced the groan of pain to stay in his throat as he kept his breathing even, hoping that the two men wouldn't notice his movement. Gibbs was wrong. He hadn't actually _lied_. Not really. He had crashed his car. And on his sixteenth birthday, just like he had told Tony. And he had been in traction—again, just as he had told Tony. But he never come out and said that he had been in traction because of the accident. Tony had just assumed that. Another thing that Trent had taught him—if you know how to omit and imply you don't need to actually know how to lie.

Gibbs debated for a minute whether or not to call his agent out on pretending to be asleep, but he decided to wait and see how far Tim was willing to go with it. "Who?" He barked at Tobias.

"Did you know that he has spoken to his parents only once in the last seven years? Tim's mother told Ron that they just ran out of things to say. Sarah McGee said that '_he is brilliant in ways that most other people can't even begin to comprehend. My parents don't understand that kind of intelligence. They don't understand him.'_" Tobias didn't say anything else.

Tim's breath stilled and he could have easily rung his sister's neck! Not only had she let loose something she had sworn she would never talk about, now she had Tobias thinking that he had been abused! While Trent would ague the point, that simply wasn't true. They had never laid a hand on him. All they did was step back and watch as other people did it.

"His parents?"

Tobias shrugged. "Hell,I don't know." He said, shaking his head. "It's very likely."

Gibbs' rage simmered as he thought about what he had learned. "What did you mean about—" Gibbs broke off as Tobias reached out and unclenched the hand that held the file. He watched as Tobias pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to him. He didn't understand what he was looking at until he came to the end. When he did he felt like he needed to sit down before he fell down, he was so shocked. Gibbs had done his homework when he had first scouted Tim for his team. Looked into his degrees and into what kind of man he was. He had discovered that his future agent was a smart but insecure and socially awkward man, who everyone liked but thought was reclusive. He had seen the potential shining the first time he had ever looked into those clear green eyes and hadn't dug any deeper then what was on the surface, trusting his gut instead. His gut had never let him down and it had told him that Tim would be an asset to his team.

Tobias noticed his reaction. "You didn't know."

Gibbs gave a harsh laugh. "That I have an agent that could give the guy that invented the atomic bomb a run for his money in the brains department?" He asked sarcasticly. "I think its safe to say no, I didn't know."

Tobias watched as he turned icy, rage-filled blue eyes on his agent. Gibbs was already this mad and Tobias hadn't even gotten around to telling him about the set-up or anything pertaining to it. There was going to be quite an explosion when he found out the truth about that assigment.

~_NCIS~_

After showering and brewing a pot of coffee, Courtney had settled down with her computer. She wasn't in Tim's league when it came to breaking code and hacking systems, but she could handle her own with most systems. The further she got into the classified projects that Tim's dad had been or were involved in, the more she wished she couldn't. When she had cracked the last file she sat back against her hunter green sofa, a pale ivory hand covering her full mouth. She stared at her computer screen in horror. "Oh, Tim..." She said softly in the stillness of her townhouse. "Tim."


	12. Chapter 12

_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!_

_~NCIS~_

Gibbs looked from his agent to the sheath of papers that he still held in his hand and started to read randomly from different parts. "_'Timothy McGee has one of the most developed intellects of any that has ever been come across.' 'It is best explained like this:A person with an average IQ uses only a small percentage of their brain power. A person with a genius IQ uses slightly more then that of someone with an average IQ. Timothy McGee uses __significantly__ more of his brain power then that of someone with an genius level IQ. When tested with what is currently available, Timothy McGee scored off the charts. There are no current classifications that he even comes close of being in range of.'"_ Gibbs came to the last one that had caught him. It was his personal favorite. _"'Timothy McGee has a brilliance that the rest of us, genius and average man alike, won't evolve to for many, many years to come.'" _Gibbs turned back to his agent. "What the hell, McGee!" He exclaimed loudly. "I have the greatest mind ever discovered on my team and I have been using him as a simple computer tech? A job _anyone _ in cyber crimes could do?" Gibbs looked at the paper again. "I have the '_next step in evolution' _on my team and I've been using him as a _field _agent!" He asked in disbelief. "I've been sending him out in the _field_!" He said incredulously, shaking his head. "_Why?" _He breathed in a rage filled voice. "Why didn't you ever say anything!" How could no one have seen this? Oh, everyone knew that Tim was smart, but how could they have worked with him for eight years and never even been clued in? It seemed impossible. But it wasn't. Gibbs held the proof in his hands.

Tim's eyes opened then and there was a hardness in them that Gibbs had never seen before. "Because I love being a field agent." He stated without inflection. "And I knew that if I ever told you, I would never be sent out into the field again." He said calmly, without any of the nervousness that Gibbs had come to associate with his youngest agent. "I knew that you wouldn't want the responsibility of maybe losing the next step in evolution. I knew that if any of you ever found out that you would never look at me the same way again." He'd also known that without the protection that being an NCIS agent offered him, it would only be a matter of time before they took him back to the labs. And he would have gone, too. Because as much as he had hated it there, as much as he hated how they had twisted his work, how they had used him, how much he had hated the projects—_especially_ Frankenstein—at least he was doing _something_. And, as long as he was at the labs, the CIA or the Navy couldn't ..._utilize... _him. Tim gave an ivoluntary shudder at even the thought of something like that happening

Tim watched Gibbs steadily, and felt a bit of bitterness well up at the expression on his boss' face. There had only been one person who had never looked at him like that. Only one person who had never thought of Tim as a freak or looked at him as if he was a science experiment. The only friend he had ever really had. Jonas Cobb. Jim Nelson hadn't known the real Tim. Even Trent had looked at Tim with a tinge of fear in his eyes at first. His own parents had been afraid—not necessarily of him, but of what he was capable of. They had even been to afraid to touch him, afraid that they would be..._tainted..._ somehow. That was one of the reasons why they had turned him over to the Navy. They wanted there to be someone to blame besides themselves if he did...well, _anything_.

Tim turned hard, bitter green eyes to Tobias. "How did you find that, Fornell?" He asked, a lack of courtesy in his voice that neither of the two older men had ever heard directed at anyone before from the younger man, not even the lowliest criminal. Timothy McGee always treated everyone with courtesy and respect. Mainly because he had been offered so little of both in his life.

"We thought that everything like that was gotten rid of a long time ago." Tim said, absently.

Tim and Trent had been sure that, between them, they had destroyed anything that ever existed in the file that the CIA had put together on him. Someone had obviously kept their own copy of at least part of it. Tim had to wonder just exactly who that was. The thought flashed through his mind that it could have been Trent. Trent had helped him a lot but there was to much between them, for Tim to ever fully trust him. Besides, he had been after Tim from the start of getting on Gibbs' team to tell the man the full truth, but Tim had resisted. He had read the file that Trent had composed on Gibbs, discovered that the man was tough but fair, discovered that Gibbs was close to his team. He had read what was said about Tony, Abby and Ducky. He knew that they all were family. All Tim wanted was to be a part of that and if they knew the truth, then there was no way that would ever happen. So he had hidden his light under a bushel as Penny used to say, and hoped for the best. But the best had never happened. He had managed to become a member of the team, but he had never fully become part of the family. He just didn't know how to get close to people. How to connect. All hiding his light had accomplished was becoming replaceable. And being replaced? Well, that wasn't any better than being _traded_.

Gibbs glared at his agent. "_We,_ McGee?"

'_Shit!'_ Tim thought, kicking himself. _'Why in the world did I say __we__!' _ He knew better then to speak unguarded. He had been taught to always think before speaking, to choose what he said carefully. Tim just looked at Gibbs, letting him know, that despite the famous Gibbs glare, he wasn't going to answer.

Gibbs stared back at his agent, wondering where the backbone Tim was showing had come from. He certainly hadn't shown it before.

"It wasn't very hard to find, Tim." Tobias said, hoping to defuse what promised to be a volatile situation. He was beginning to get concerned—well more concerned then he already was. Could this be part of the set-up? Another way to get to the kid? For Tim to have to be blackmailed into working with them the way that he had, someone had to know that Tim hadn't been completely truthful with Gibbs or his team mates. The release of this information was suspicious. It might have been leaked to alienate him further from the people who would look out for him. This could be the shooters' way of trying to get at him again.

Tim didn't say anything, didn't break his concentration from Gibbs.

Tobias opened his mouth, deciding to take the bull by the horns, but before he could his phone rung. "Fornell!" He exclaimed irritated at being interrupted.

_~'Tobias, it's Courtney.'~_

Tobias rolled his eyes. She always identified herself, like he couldn't read the caller id or recognized her voice. "Yes, Courtney." He said patiently.

~_'I-I've opened the files.'~_

Tobias could here a hesitancy in her voice that hadn't been there for a long time. "And?" He prompted.

~_'I think it would be best not to say anything over the phone. I-I-'~_ She stopped. _~'Y-Y-You need to see a-a-and hear this for yourself.'_ Her voice came over the line shaky.

"Kind of busy at the moment." He said, looking from Gibbs to Tim, who were still eyeing each other, listening to his side of the conversation. "Can't you just tell me?"

~_'Please,Tobias.'~_ She pleaded. ~'_Don't make me say it. I don't want to say it. I don't even want to think about it.'~_

Tobias heard her take a deep shudering breath.

~_'I-I wish—Oh, Tobias, I wish...'~_

She trailed off and he could hear the tears in her voice and it concerned him. He knew his youngest agent, the girl that had become a second daughter to him. He knew that it took a lot to upset her enough to cry. She only sometimes cried when she was hurt, mostly it was because she was mad. A few times it was because something had frightened her. It disturbed him greatly that something in those files had hurt, angered or scared her enough to do so now.

"Courtney—" A squeak over the line cut him off. "Courtney?" He exclaimed, alarmed. "Courtney! What is it?" He stood up and started to move quickly to Tim's hospital room door.Had she made a mistake while breaking into those files? Was there someone monitoring them? Did that someone think it might have been Tim? Were they going after his girl?

_~'I—It's just Jethro.'~ _She gave a shaky laugh. ~'_Sorry.'~ _She apologized.~'_I'm just spooked._~ She gave a laugh that ended on a sob. _~Seeing ghosts, I guess.'~_

Tobias wasn't reassured. Gibbs would have to wait, he decided. "I'm on my way, Court." He said gently.

_~'Thank you.'~ _Her softly spoken gratitude floated over the line before she disconnected.

Tobias closed his phone and ran a hand down his face, sighing.

"Everything alright, Tobias?" Gibbs asked the question but he could see the concern in Tim's eyes.

Tobias turned to face both men fully. "Your dog spooked her." He said to Tim with a chuckle, shaking his head.

Tim smiled a half-smile, but didn't say anything.

Tobias sighed again, his mind on what Courtney could had discovered to upset her so much. He knew instinctively that she wasn't over-reacting this time. He knew, also, that whatever it was, it wasn't anything good.

"I got to go." He nodded his head at the door. "I'll be back later to see you, Tim."

"Wait a minute!" Gibbs said, stopping him before he could get out the door. "I want my people to go over the crime scene and I want Abby to go over the forensics. I want everything there is about Tim's case and I want to see the FBI file on this operation!"

Tobias was silent a moment while he debated what to do. If he gave over Tim's case file then Gibbs would come to the same conclusion as he and Ron. Was he ready to do that? He realized then that it didn't matter if he was ready or not. By the glare Gibbs was giving him, he wasn't getting away without giving him the information he wanted. And he owed it to him. If it was one of his team, he would want to know. He sighed again as he got ready to speak.

_~NCIS~_

When she got home, instead of going straight to her bed, Ziva started looking through her kitchen, trying to decide what to bring with her to the hospital for Tim. She would not ever say it out loud, but she felt a little bit guilty. She had never worried about him the way she had Tony and Gibbs. She did not know why. Ziva knew that Tim's job in the field was every bit as dangerous as theirs was. She guessed it was because she just could not imagine anyone seeing Tim as a threat. Yes, he was an field agent and carried a gun. But it was _Tim_. This was a guy that ate a kid's cereal for breakfast. This was a guy that took in a dog that mauled him because it did not have anywhere else to go. This was a man who remained friends with an ex-lover. This was not a man who people felt threatened by. She did not know all the details of this assignment, but she did know that he had only been there to get information that was needed from a computer. She could not understand why someone would want to shoot Tim. Fornell and Sacks had been there, also. Why not take out the ones that were much more dangerous? A feeling Ziva could not identify came over her as she froze. There was something more going on here. She was not the investigator that the others were but it did not take a good investigator to see that.

~_NCIS~_


	13. Chapter 13

_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!_

_~NCIS~_

Tony let himself into his apartment, his mind, once again, on his junior partner. There was something bothering him, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. Instead of heading straight to his bedroom to get some rest, he detoured to his kitchen, heading straight to the fridge. He had eaten already, Ziva having brought him a sandwich when she came back from the cafeteria with Courtney. He pulled a beer out, even though it was _waaaay_ to early to be drinking, but the little bit of alcohol would relax him and hopefully calm his restless mind. Maybe if he could get a few hours sleep, when he woke up, whatever was bothering him would become clear.

_~NCIS~_

Tim watched Tobias and Gibbs dispassionately through the little window of his hospital room door. He could tell the exact moment that Tobias told Gibbs his suspicions because Gibbs whipped around so fast to glare at him through that same little window that Tim was surprised he didn't give himself whiplash. His boss was not pleased. Tim watched another minute as the two other men argued before closing his eyes with a sigh. It was over. His life at NCIS was over with. Gibbs wouldn't want him on the team now that he knew at least some of it. He wouldn't want the responsibility of him, just as his parents hadn't. Even if Trent had solved the problem of who wanted him dead and he did manage to contain the fallout of that, it wouldn't matter. Enough damage had already been done. Now all he had to look forward to was what had been his life for the years before Frankenstein or what ever the CIA or the Navy had in store for him. Tim thought it ironic that Gibbs didn't want the responsibility of sending him out into the field and maybe losing him, but the others didn't have that problem. They knew what he was capable of. They had trained him, after all. Suddenly he wished the shooter had accomplished his goal. If he was going to die, what did it matter who was going to kill him? And dying was preferable to killing, no matter who he would be killing. With that last depressing thought, Tim lost the fight to stay awake and drifted off into a medicine induced sleep.

~_NCIS~_

While waiting for Tobias to arrive, Courtney was watching the files that she had decrypted. She had already watched them more than once but for some reason she was drawn to them, even though what they showed, not only horrified her but made her ill, too. She reached out and turned the volume on her computer up as the same doctor that was on all the files she had watched came on the screen. He was a slightly youngish man with raven black hair with silver on the sides, black eyes and deeply tanned skin. He was of above average height with the build of a man that worked out regularly but not religiously. Courtney looked on as the camera came to focus on a slim child of about four. He had dark blonde hair that she knew would darken to light brown as he got older and beautiful emerald green eyes shining with brilliance. He was very small for his age, both in stature and in weight, but Courtney could see the potential for height in his long limbs. The little boy—_Tim—_was holding a guitar, the large instrument way too big for his small hands, his fingers moving effortlessly over the strings, causing the most hauntingly beautiful music that Courtney could ever remember hearing to come over the computer speakers.

_'It is extraordinary!'_ A voice said.

Courtney had discovered that the voice belonged to the black-haired doctor that was in most of the recordings.

_'The subject has taught himself to play the guitar in less then four hours!'_ The doctor continued. The way that Tim was called 'the subject' grated on Courtney's nerves.

The file switched and Tim came into focus again, wearing the same black shorts and blue t-shirt that he had on in the previous video. This time he was playing the piano.

_'The subject has taught himself to play over ten instruments. The more that he learns to play, the easier it is for him to learn the next one. The subject learned the piano, the tenth instrument, in less than two hours. And it is not only limited to musical instruments. The subject has taught himself to speak, read and write five languages. Two of them are dead languages. The subject has become accomplished at braille and sign language. He reads at a level that can't even be recorded, going through tomes that weigh more then he does in a matter of hours. When given the most advanced computer that we have available, the subject learned to work it and all the programs in one hour. Even when applied to practical application, this subjects' potential is limitless. It is of my opinion that there is truly nothing that this subject cannot accomplish.'_

Courtney switched the video to a later one. This one showed an older Tim, tall and gangly, his hair shot through with brown now. He was strapped down to a table and his once clear green eyes were clouded with pain and fever, his body, where she could see, covered in wounds. This Tim couldn't have been more than fifteen and what the people were doing to a boy that was little more than a child truly sickened her. What upset her the most was that it was her government, the same government that she had dedicated her life to, that was doing it.

_'Amazing!'_ The same doctor's voice came over the computer again. _'The experiment has been going on for over two hours and the subject has not spoken a word.'_

Courtney watched as a different man, gray haired and brown eyed, picked up a knife and casually slipped it into Tim's side, it cutting his skin like butter. She could see that the weapon was used to cause maximum pain while causing little damage. The gray haired man made a dozen of the shallow cuts before stopping. He was methodical; dispassionate. He turned to face the camera.

_'Fascinating.'_ His voice was strong and clear, no detectable accent. _'A subject such as this should have broken after the first few minutes. Yet he holds on.' _The way that man looked at Tim as if he wasn't even human sent shivers down Courtney's spine.

The gray haired man turned back to Tim. He picked up a device that Courtney recognized as a tazer from the instrument tray that stood beside where Tim was strapped down, and as casually as one would give a caress he pressed the button on the side of the tazer, causing the prongs to come out and attach to Tim. As the current ran through the teenage Tim, his back bowed and the knife wounds started to bleed profusely. No sound could be heard except the sound of the tazer. Tim did not call out, did not beg, did not even let out a whimper or groan. As the gray haired man sent current after current through Tim, it was eerily silent. And Courtney watched it all, just as quiet, tears streaming down her face.

_~NCIS~_

Ducky closed the file that he had just finished reading and sat back in his chair wearily. He hadn't been able to forget about the medical record that Tobias had had him look at that morning. It had haunted him all day, causing him to be absent minded and short tempered. Finally, he had had enough and decided to do a little research. It hadn't been hard to discover what he wanted to know. Ducky had heard about Tim's car accident from when he was sixteen from Jimmy who had heard about it from Tony. Given that Fornell was Jethro's friend and the way he had been upset about what Ducky had told him, he had made a leap of faith. He hadn't really expected to find anything when he looked into Tim's medical record and he wished he hadn't. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose as he cursed his curiousness. He sincerely wished that he had just let this go.

"Is everything okay, Dr. Mallard?" The hesitant voice of his young assistant broke through his thoughts. Ducky looked up to where Jimmy stood in the doorway of his office, dressed in his street clothes, a pair of tan slacks and a light blue button up with a darker blue tie.

Ducky tried to give the lad a smile but knew he hadn't succeeded by the look on Jimmy's face. "Everything is just fine, Mister Palmer."

Jimmy looked doubtful. He knew something was bothering his boss and it had to do with the consultation that Ducky had had that morning with Agent Fornell. Jimmy had seen Fornell leaving when he was arriving in autopsy and when ask, Ducky had just said that he was consulting on a FBI case. He couldn't help but worry about his mentor. Jimmy had never seen the ME like this. Something was troubling Ducky, and it seemed to be on a personal level. But what could be personal about a consultation with the FBI?

"If your sure?" Jimmy asked.

Ducky's wise blue eyes met Jimmy's. "Go home, Mister Palmer." He said gently.

With one more concerned glance at Ducky, Jimmy left, making a note to talk to Tony about Ducky's weird behavior in the morning.

Ducky watched as Jimmy left a warmth filling him. Very rarely did Jimmy show his concern. Ducky knew how the lad felt about him, one only had to look into his eyes to see that. But he hardly ever showed it. He had needed it today. The warmth faded as his eyes fell to the file on his desk. He wondered if anyone had ever shown that level of concern for Tim.

_~NCIS~_


	14. Chapter 14

_YES, I FINALLY UPDATED. HOPE I STILL HAVE SOME READERS. ALL I CAN DO IS SAY HOW SORRY I AM FOR THE LONG WAIT. A LOT OF DRAMA. ANY WAY, I WOULD LIKE TO SINCERELY THANK EVERYONE WHO HAS READ, REVIEWED, ALERTED AND FAVORITED. I APPRECIATED EACH ONE. IT ALWAYS SURPRISES ME THAT MY WRITING GETS SO MUCH ATTENTION._

_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING! I GIVE CREDIT TO WHOEVER DOES OWN IT._

_~NCIS~_

After Gibbs finished talking with Tobias, he stormed into his youngest agent's room with righteous indignation, determined to brow-beat Tim into telling him the truth—the whole _truth_. Not only about this assignment he was working on with the FBI, but about everything else he seemed to have kept hidden from him. The wind was taken out of his sails when he came face to face with his sleeping agent. Gibbs stood there for almost a minute—a life time for him—in indecision, as he debated whether or not to wake Tim up. He finally sighed and moved to take the seat that Tobias had vacated. He sat and stared at his agent's pale, young face, made even paler by the stark white pillow case and sheets. The junior agent had always been something of a conundrum and Jethro Gibbs had never been able to quite figure out the puzzle that was Timothy McGee. McGee presented himself as an open book but there was an air of mystery that surrounded him. Gibbs had always attributed it to McGee's almost fanatical desire for privacy but now he wondered, with the new information he had, if it wasn't something more. If there wasn't another aspect to his agent that Gibbs had never bothered to look for.

_~NCIS~_

Ducky cut off the lights of autopsy and slowly made his way to the elevator, feeling every inch of his age. He had sat for a time after Mister Palmer had left, just thinking about Timothy. His friendship with the youngest agent on Gibbs team wasn't what it was with the others. For all his openness, Timothy was a hard man to get close too. He never volunteered any information that really mattered. He never talked about his interests beyond what came up in the course of an investigation. He never talked about his family or his childhood; not the things that were really important. He never talked about the things that had made him the man that he had become. Ducky had attributed it to a natural reticence. He had never considered that Timothy might have been hiding something like he was.

Ducky made it to his elderly Morgan and got inside. He sighed deeply as he put the key into the ignition and turned it. He had thought hard about going to see Timothy but had eventually decided against it. Ducky wasn't sure he would be able to convey his care to Timothy without it coming out as the pity that Timothy wouldn't want. And he had a feeling that was where Jethro was. Ducky didn't want to be put in the position of holding this back from his friend—if he didn't know yet. The ME had a feeling if Jethro wasn't aware of this latest information about his youngest agent, he soon would be, so if he waited until tomorrow for his visit, he would have a better hold on his emotions and he wouldn't be in the difficult position of trying to hide information from his friend. As Ducky turned out of the Navy Yard toward home, he hoped that tomorrow would come without surprises, but he had a feeling deep inside that this new information was only the tip of an ice berg. A very big and—dangerous?—iceberg.

_~NCIS~_

"I want an example set!" The gray haired man exclaimed, his lined face red with indignation. He was absolutely _livid_. If Trent Kort thought he could get away with threatening him… "Trent Kort needs to be put in his place and Timothy McGee needs to be put down like the rabid dog he is!" He hissed angrily. He should have taken care of McGee years ago, but he would remedy that mistake now.

"I'm sorry, sir." A tiny, middle aged woman with short, dark blond hair and hazel eyes shifted nervously as she watched the gray haired man that sat behind the heavy desk with the cherry finish in the opulent office. "But we don't have an associate at that hospital." She hated to give him that information, but the truth was, the doctor may have been in a position of power in their government, but he just didn't have the reach he had once had. The people who were once involved had distanced their selves long ago.

The gray haired man slammed his hands down on the desk and pushed himself half-way up. "Then _buy_ me someone!" He hissed through clenched teeth, glaring furiously at her.

The woman took a step back under that glare and swallowed hard. "As you say, sir." She said before she backed out slowly, having learned over the years that she shouldn't turn her back on her boss when he was like this. She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, letting out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. She took a minute to compose herself before moving to her own desk in the corner of the reception area. As she sat down in her desk chair and opened one of her desk drawers to pull out her _special _address book, she thought about how far she had fallen.

Anna Wood had come to Washington from a small town in the southwest, fresh out of college, a young, idealistic, woman who had truly believed in what she was doing. She had wanted to make a difference. Anna had learned very quickly that idealism didn't pay the bills. So she had taken a job as an assistant in a research project for the Navy. It had only ever been intended as a short-term stepping stone, but by the time she had realized exactly what the project had been, it had already gone too far for her to get out. She had been trapped and all she had left was what the gray haired man had offered her. What he offered hadn't been too bad. She had done her job and done it well. So well, in fact, that when the project had gained recognition from the right people in high places and the doctor had moved up, he had taken her with him. She led a modest life and had everything she wanted, within reason. And if, at times, she didn't feel as if she could get her hands clean, she managed to push it aside.

Anna felt a moment of sadness as she picked up her phone. She remembered Timothy McGee. The exceptional child that had been treated more as a lab specimen—poked prodded and studied—than he had as a little boy. He had been fascinating to some but most had feared the brilliant boy. Anna had liked Timothy McGee, even while being in awe of him. And, maybe, just a little bit afraid of him. But she had never thought of him as most of the others involved had thought of him. She had never considered him to be a freak, an abomination; Anna had never thought of Tim as something unnatural that didn't have the right to exist. And she didn't agree with what her boss had planned for him. But she also didn't have a choice. She had come too far for anything else.

_~NCIS~_

Trent Kort settled back in the driver's seat of his average, unmarked sedan with a malicious grin. He knew that the bug that he had left in the good doctor's office would come in handy one day. Trent Kort was, by nature, a suspicious man. Since becoming involved with his…_associates_…, he had only become more so. He had learned to be wary of everyone.

The listening device that he had planted had survived every sweep that had been done in that office. It was one of Tim's designs, virtually just a speck, unable to be seen with the naked eye and completely undetectable. It had proven to be invaluable.

Trent pulled out his cell phone and then hesitated. He wasn't sure who to contact. Tim needed to know that a member of the hospital staff may be gunning for him and that he needed to be on the lookout. Trent also knew that he needed to put someone else on watch, too, but he wasn't sure who. He didn't entirely trust that Leon Vance had Tim's best interests at heart. Tobias Fornell was only one man. There was only so much he could accomplish on his own, even though he had his two subordinates to help him. Gibbs could help. He had access to his team, which included his medical examiner, the ME's assistant and his forensic scientist. Trent was sure that all of their help would prove invaluable before all this was over but he had promised Tim that he wouldn't ever involve Team Gibbs in anything to do with his past. Trent understood. Tim was afraid of them finding out. He was afraid of what would happen, of what they would think if they knew the truth. He feared how they would treat him, how they would act around him if they knew even some of his secrets. Tim was also afraid that they would blame him for Mike Franks death if they knew that he had been a part of Project Frankenstein; that he had known Jonas Cobb. That Tim had been his friend.

Trent went back and forth for another minute before realizing he was probably over thinking the situation. Vance was already aware of the problem. He really didn't need this new information. Fornell was already investigating. He didn't need to know that someone was still after Tim to keep on doing that. Gibbs was already guarding Tim. Knowing this knew information wouldn't make him any more aware or any more vigilant. The only person that really needed to know was Tim. He needed to get out of that hospital and somewhere safe until Trent had handled everything. Nodding decisively, he opened his phone and dialed.

_~NCIS~_

As Tobias made his way to Courtney's place, he wondered what she had found to upset her like it had. He knew that it had to be bad. He had heard that in her voice. Tobias felt a wave of trepidation come over him as he pulled in and parked behind Courtney. Tobias knew instinctively that he wasn't going to like what he was about to find out. He hesitated for a moment before getting out of his car and walking to her front door.

~_NCIS~_

Tim opened his eyes when he heard the door to his hospital room close. He realized he must have fallen asleep and Gibbs had given up on his answers for the moment. But Tim knew that he would be back for them. He wished more than anything that everyone would just leave him alone but he knew that wasn't going to happen. Tim ran a weary hand over his face. What was he going to do? He couldn't lie and telling the truth was out of the question. Not answering Gibbs questions wasn't even an option. What was he going to do? He thought again with despair.

_~NCIS~_

Gibbs informed the two agents outside McGee's door of his intention to go for coffee after leaving his sleeping agent's room. When he decided that he was far enough away where he couldn't be overheard, he slipped into a shadowed alcove and pulled out his phone; pressing speed dial one, he shifted impatiently while waiting for the other party to pick-up. When Abby answered, he quickly informed her of what had been going all day and after he calmed her down he quickly told her to come to Bethesda. He ended the call after reassuring her that Tim recover just fine. Gibbs stood in the alcove for another minute before he left it. He had another reason for wanting the forensic scientist to come here besides visiting Tim. He wanted to give her the information that Tobias had given him about Tim's shooting. Gibbs churning gut told him that it wasn't a good idea to get into any of that on the phone in an unsecure location. At least in McGee's room precautions could be took that couldn't be taken over a cell phone.

_~NCIS~_

"Are you alright, Jimmy?" Breena Slater asked her fiancée as she put his supper plate in front of him.

"I'm fine, Breena." Jimmy said distractedly. His thoughts were on his mentor. He was worried about the elderly M.E. .

Breena took her seat at the tiny table in Jimmy's small apartment. "I know something's wrong, Jimmy." She said in a quiet voice. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Jimmy pushed his food around on his plate for a few minutes before answering. "I'm worried about Dr. Mallard." He said finally. "He wasn't himself today. He didn't tell one story. He hardly even spoke at all."

"Do you have any idea of what's wrong?"

Jimmy shrugged. "He consulted on a case with the FBI this morning. Something about it upset him."

"Do you know what the case was about?" Breena asked, covering the hand that rested on the table with hers. She had met the Medical Examiner numerous times and liked him. From the little that Jimmy has told her and from her own observations of the man, for something to have shaken Dr. Mallard, it had to be bad.

Jimmy shook his head. "No. But after the FBI left he locked himself in his office for a long time. When he came out, he was even more upset." Jimmy thought for a minute. "No. Not upset." He said thoughtfully. "Disturbed." Jimmy shook his head. "I don't know what he was doing in there, but whatever it was that he discovered disturbed him greatly." Jimmy put his fork down, his appetite completely gone. "I've worked with Doctor Mallard for over seven years, Breena." He said quietly, turmoil flashing in his brown eyes. "And I've never seen the look on his face that I did today."

_~NCIS~_

_HOPE THIS CHAPTER DIDN'T DISAPPOINT ANYONE. NEXT CHAPTER IN TWO WEEKS._


End file.
